League of Exceptionals Vol V
by The Threat
Summary: What do you do when giant monsters attack Earth? What do you do when a giant solar flare is about to wipe out all life?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is owned by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Apart from the story's narrator, not one character used here is mine.

* * *

SGS Europe, April 18, 2009:

A co-worker of mine returned to base with a suitcase, which by his own admission he got off some bum from the streets. That co-worker, named Paul, was in the testing room now, along with Dorien, who would assist him if something went wrong. I wasn't in the room myself, rather I was looking inside the room through the two-way mirror. I saw how Paul opened the suitcase, revealing there was a belt inside it. It wasn't your every day belt, though. It was gray, appeared to be made out of Kevlar, and had some electronic things attached to it which I couldn't quite identify. Paul put the belt on, upon which he picked up another item from the suitcase. It appeared to be a cell-phone, but it seemed to be made of the same material as the belt, and appeared to bear some of the same markings. The cell-phone in question was one of those types which you have to open in order to use its keypad. Which was exactly what Paul did. He opened the phone and pressed a few buttons. Once the buttons were pressed, the cell-phone said "standing by". It took me by surprise, but Paul seemed to be expecting it, as did Dorien. Next he inserted the phone into a slot that was on the belt. At the time, I didn't know what was supposed to happen, but the fact that the same voice that said "standing by" was suddenly saying "error", and the fact that the belt seemed to cause sparks to fly, made it clear that whatever was supposed to happen couldn't happen. Immediately, Dorien jumped to Paul's aid.

"Are you okay, Paul?" she asked.

"Am I okay?" Paul growled, "I wouldn't have this frail body if that Ferl... never mind."

"If who... what?" Dorien asked.

"I said never mind!" Paul shouted.

"Let me try." Dorien offered.

"If it doesn't work on me, why would it work on you?" Paul questioned.

Interrupting their argument was a face that appeared on a flat-screen on the wall. It was our boss, Napoleon.

"How is everything?" he asked, "Everything in tip-top shape?"

"No!" Paul immediately said, "The Faiz-gear still won't work!"

"Then it looks like our assessments were correct." Napoleon said, "The gear is designed for a specific type of person to use it."

"That means I've done all this power training for nothing?" Paul whined.

"Well, I wouldn't say that." Dorien said, "Now you're strong enough to defend yourself against my mother, if she ever has an excuse to arrest you."

Given how I've heard Paul mumble about how he used to be a grown-up man before he got changed into the younger man that I saw before me, I wondered whether Dorien's mother, of whom I'll have to assume she's with the police, needs an excuse to arrest him.

Wherever my train of thought was leading me, it got interrupted when I, as well as Paul and Dorien, received a text-message on our own cell-phones. it read: "MAIN ROOM NOW!"

I didn't hesitate for one second to go to the main room, and neither did Dorien or Paul.

In the main room, our other co-worker, Miranda, was waiting, whilst doing something on the computer. In this room, I saw the TV-screen. It was tuned in on GNN, where it was broadcasting reports about a tsunami taking place in the Pacific ocean. A large chunk of New Zealand was flooded.

"That's horrible!" Dorien said.

"What happened?" Paul asked.

"I can't make sense out of this." Miranda said from behind the computer screen, "I've been trying to look for the source of the tsunami for hours now."

"Hours?" Dorien couldn't believe it, "This happened hours ago?"

"And did you find the source by now?" Paul asked.

"I think so, but... this is what I don't understand." Miranda answered, "At the center of it all seems to be an island."

This made sense to none of us, so Paul said: "An island is the cause of it?"

Miranda turned the computer screen toward us: "I don't understand it either."

On the screen, we saw a map of the area, with a red dot in the middle. Though calling it a dot wasn't accurate, as it had an unusual shape. It was almost as if it was an island blinking red.

"Weird." I said.

"Yeah, no kidding." Paul said.

"No." I said, "I meant it looks exactly like a map I saw in a Richard Bachman novel."

"Richard Bachman?" Dorien said, "He writes fiction. Thought you knew that."

"People." Napoleon's face suddenly popped up on the computer screen, "Do you realize what this island is?"

We all shook our heads, so Napoleon could answer: "That must be the legendary R'lyeh."

All of us looked in awe, except for Dorien: "What's R'l... Ryl'... what?"

"R'lyeh is the tomb of Cthulhu!" Paul answered.

"Who's Cthulhu?" Dorien wondered.

"Otherwise known as Cthlhu, Kutulu, Catulhu..." I explained, "Cthulhu is one of the more ancient deities. Being a giant, he considers himself to be above everything else, so all should bow down to him. It is said that his body alone was so big, they needed an entire island to bury him in. But if we're to believe the stories, Cthulhu may be buried, but he's not dead."

"Many cults have arisen that worship this Cthulhu." Paul added.

"People would willingly bow down to him?" Dorien couldn't understand, "If I saw a giant, I'd run away."

"Humans will always be too lazy to solve their problems." Paul said, sounding more cynical than you'd expect someone of his age to be, "So they'd turn to something that could save them. Even if the thing doesn't sound like it would want to save them anyway."

"Not to mention that, if I'm to believe what Bachman wrote, Cthulhu has telepathic abilities, so it's questionable whether those cults have followers who joined out of their own volition."

"Didn't I just tell you that Bachman writes fiction?" Dorien reminded me.

"Yes, and R'lyeh is supposed to be just a legend." I snapped back.

"So if R'lyeh is real, it's possible that Cthulhu is too." Miranda said, "And if he is..."

She couldn't finish her sentence, but we all thought the same thing.

"I've already alerted SGS in Japan." Napoleon said, "They're on their way there."

Within the split second that he said those words, the flat-screen on the wall lit up. On it, there was what appeared to be a silver cone, with a golden crown, two stick-arms, eyes and a mouth.

"Good evening, SGS Europe." it said.

"Mr. Voice." Miranda said.

"Nice to see you again, Miranda." the thing on the screen, Mr. Voice, replied.

"You... what is that?" Dorien asked.

"That's Mr. Voice." Miranda said, "Leader of SGS Japan."

"I've already deployed my people to check out that island." Mr. Voice said.

"That was fast." Paul remarked.

"Well, I think while we were explaining the situation to Dorien, Napoleon had all the time he needed to contact Japan." I explained.

"Quite right." Mr. Voice confirmed, "By the way, you may be interested to know that we're equipped with camera's, so I can monitor what's going on. I take it you're interested in seeing for yourself as well."

"Of course we are." Dorien replied.

Not too long after that, Mr. Voice disappeared from the screen, revealing a split-screen, where we could see exactly what it was that those camera's were registering.


	2. Chapter 2

Can't say I was entirely sure of what I was watching. There were two camera's that seemed to be flying over the ocean. I'd guess they were from the vehicles they were using to transport themselves there. The other four were from inside the cockpits. Strangely, three of them were from the same cockpit, whereas the fourth was from a different one. At several times, the camera's inside the cockpit were moving from side to side, which lead me to believe those were mounted onto the pilots' heads. Though when the pilots looked at each other, it became clear to me that they were wearing helmets, so the camera's were built into those. It also showed who was controlling the one machine. There was one guy in a black suit, another in a blue suit, and (by the sound of the voice) a girl in a yellow suit. I noticed there were two empty seats in that cockpit. Looked to me as though there were two missing. I suddenly realized there was a fourth person, controlling the other machine, alone. I began wondering what color of suit he was wearing when my thoughts got interrupted.

"What are they saying?" Dorien asked.

Of course, I thought to myself. Those people were talking to each other, but since they were Japanese, we couldn't understand a word of what they're saying.

Paul addressed me: "You're the martial artist."

"So?" what did that have to do with it?

"Well, you must understand some of the things they're saying." Paul reasoned.

"Just because I have to learn a few Japanese words in martial arts, doesn't mean I know enough to converse with others." I replied, "Let alone understand what others are saying."

"You're no help." Paul groaned.

I ignored him, and tried to follow what was happening on the screens.

From what I can tell, these pilots arrived at the island. It seemed that in fact there was only one flying machine, which was carrying the other to R'lyeh. The one dropped the other, then landed beside it. This way, the camera's were finally pointing at each other, and we could see what was flying. They were both giant robots. I heard the other three expressing astonishment at the sight of those, but I ignored them. The two robots were walking towards the island, which somehow got engulfed in dense fog, which blocked much of our sights. The pilots sounded excited, though I'm not sure if that was because they were having the same problem as I was, or something else entirely. I had thought of asking them if they have night vision, but I wasn't sure if that would help them see through fog; Next I thought of heat-vision, but knowing that Cthulhu was a reptile-like being, it probably won't show any heat signature. I think those pilots drew the same conclusion, because they weren't using any of these things either. I could tell they switched on some lights on their giant robots, but that didn't help them any. Suddenly, a light came through the fog. As best as I could tell, it shot down one robot. The other tried to attack... wherever that light came from, but to no avail. A shape appeared in the fog, that punched the giant robot. The robot had (I think) a sort of drill for an arm, which it tried to use, but it seemed to break upon contact with that shape, and then... I'm not sure what happened, but something hit the giant robot, nailing it down. Sparks started flying inside the cockpit, and all camera's shut down. All but one, which flickered on for a few moments longer. Long enough for us to see some thing move away from the island, and disappear in the fog.

"What happened?" Dorien asked, "Are they okay?"

"I don't know." Mr. Voice replied, "I'm trying to contact them, but they're not responding."

"Well we got to go help them!" Dorien pleaded.

"We can't." Miranda said.

"What? You can't be serious!" Dorien couldn't understand.

"I didn't say we shouldn't." Miranda elaborated, "But if I can figure out the source of that tsunami, others can too. And unlike Japan, we don't have intimidating giant robots, so the authorities won't let us on that island."

"In that case, the problem's solved." Paul said, "If we let the authorities handle this, they'll be able to help them."

"Idiot!" Mr. Voice shouted, "SGS uses technologies that can't fall into the wrong hands! We can't let others handle this!"

"That's not the worst part." Miranda said, "If we can't get on that island, we won't find out how Cthulhu was awakened, thus not know how to stop him."

"Plus this may be our only chance to finally explore R'lyeh." Napoleon said, "We have every reason to go there."

"But none that would let us in." Paul sighed.

I thought about this myself. In summary, we have to convince the authorities that letting us on that island may be our only shot at finding a way to stop Cthulhu. Luckily, my trip around the world last summer did provide me with some contacts that I could use. I took out my cell-phone and selected a number from its memory.

"Who are you calling?" Paul asked.

I was about to answer him, when somebody already picked up on the other side: "Hai?"

"Commander Krugger?" I asked.

"Yes? Who is this?" I told him my name, "Oh it's you! Is this important?"

"I should think so." I replied, "It concerns that tsunami."

"Yes, I've heard of it." Krugger replied, "What about it?"

"We... that is, me and the organization I work for, we think we know what caused it." I explained.

"You do?" this surprised him, "And what organization may that be?"

I didn't know what to answer. SGS's mission is to find and secure dangerous artifacts, so nobody would misuse their power. The only problem is that we do this in secret, so I couldn't give too many details to Krugger.

"I can't say." was all I could manage to say.

"What's the problem?" Mr. Voice asked.

"What do I tell him?" I replied, "I can't tell him who we are or what we do, right?"

"Who are you talking to anyway?" Dorien asked.

"A commander at S.P.D." I answered.

"You know someone at S.P.D.?" Mr. Voice was surprised, "Why didn't you say so? Give me his number, maybe I can sway him."

I gave Mr. Voice the number, after which he disappeared from the screen.

"I'm sorry, but what's S.P.D.?" Paul asked, after some silence.

"Special Police Dekarangers." I explained, "A police branch that deals with criminals from outer space."

"Isn't that another organization?" Miranda wondered. "U.N... U.N. International... Force... or something?"

"United Nations Intelligence Task-Force?" Napoleon corrected her, "That's a military force. It may not seem like it, but there is a big difference."

That was quite a mouthful for something military. I was about to ask if there was some acronym for this (so it would be easier to remember), when Mr. Voice appeared on our screen again: "Good news. They'll be sending someone to collect and take you to the island."

"Best news I heard today." Paul almost sounded cheerful.

"I'll also ask if he can bring bring some people from SGS America too." Mr. Voice continued, "The more people we have on that island, the faster we can have this resolved."

"One can only hope." I sighed.


	3. Chapter 3

After a short while, a helicopter arrived near the building (near it, because the building itself didn't have a landing spot for a helicopter. Said helicopter took us to an airfield, where we found... something I will admit I haven't seen before. It looked like an airplane, but its design was most peculiar. But once I recognized the S.P.D. symbol on its roof, I understood why it looked the way it did. The helicopter landed near it, so the four of us could get out to enter this... plane. At the entrance, there was somebody in a yellow suit. The suit was similar to the suits which I saw the people from the Japanese SGS wear, albeit that this was equipped with a SWAT armor.

"Are you from SGS?" the person spoke, and I had to hear the voice in order to realize it was a woman inside that suit.

"We are." Paul replied.

"That's a nice outfit." Dorien told the S.P.D. woman.

"Thanks." she replied.

"What's it made of?" Dorien asked, "I've never seen anything like it."

"It's made of Space Metal." the woman explained.

"Space Metal?" I questioned.

"Nice to see you again too." the woman then said.

"Again?" this I didn't understand.

"Remember me?" she brought up, "I was the ESPer who questioned you last year."

"Jasmine?" I couldn't believe it was her.

"Yes." I could hear her smile behind that helmet of hers.

I shook my head: "Anyway, Space Metal?"

"Its real name is... not easy to say for us humans." Jasmine explained, "But since it's not made on Earth..."

"It makes sense to call it Space Metal." I finished the sentence for her.

"That's all good." Paul said, "Now, can we please leave for that island?"

"Of course." Jasmine said, "Everyone take your seats."

Once we were all settled inside the machine, Jasmine flew it to R'lyeh. There, we saw what was left of the two giant robots from before. Which wasn't much. One of them appeared to have been blasted into bits, while the other seemed to be torn apart by a huge wild animal. Surrounding the island were boats, all of which appeared to be coast guards. And somewhere in between the robots, was another machine, similar to Jasmine's and also from S.P.D. We landed near it.

We got out of the machine and ran to our SGS colleagues. They were being taken out of their giant robots, and transported onto the other S.P.D. machine.

"Are they alright?" Dorien asked.

"Well they're alive by the looks of it." Jasmine replied, as she took a machine from her vest pocket, pressed a button, upon which that SWAT-like suit of hers disappeared, revealing herself in her more regular police uniform.

"Hey!" somebody called at us.

I saw a group of six people, each of roughly the same age as me. I didn't know who they were, but judging from that symbol that was on each of their coats, I gathered they were of SGS too.

"You're our American colleagues?" Miranda asked.

"You're our European friends?" one of the six asked.

"Oi, Jasmine." another one of them spoke to Jasmine.

I only had to look at his uniform to realize he's Jasmine's coworker. Once these two met, they spoke in their own language.

"So you're here to help us find out what happened?" one girl asked us.

"We are?" Paul sounded surprised, "I thought you had to help us?"

"Does it matter?" I questioned, "We're here now. Better find out what we can."

"It's funny, really." one of the Americans said, "Japan has always been cutting themselves off from the rest of the world, thinking themselves to be so much better, with all their weapons and their giant robots, and now look at this."

"Will." another one said, "This isn't the time."

They argued like that for some time, which I took as an opportunity to look for clues myself.

I searched the island, and I must say it was a weird sight to behold. The way the ground alone feels gave the impression I was walking on something living and breathing, and yet when I look all I saw was something that resembled pavement. It's like the island itself didn't make any distinction between what's organic and what's mineral matter. I bent my knees so I can touch the ground beneath me. I could feel it emitting heat, and some kind of whirring. Is this island a machine? Suddenly, there were two feet in front of me. I looked up and saw a girl looking over me. I recognized her as one of those American SGS people.

"Yes?" I asked.

This surprised her: "You can see me?"

"Well of course I can see you." I replied, "I'm not blind."

"I can't even see myself in the mirror like this." the girl explained, "How can you?"

This was when I realized I wasn't supposed to be able to see her. So what does that make her? A ghost?

"Hey! What's going on?" the one guy, Will, shouted at us, "Who are you talking to?"

I'm not sure what happened then, but for some reason Will suddenly said: "Oh, it's you Rose!"

"He could see me!" the girl, Rose, shouted back.

"He could?" came the reply.

"What are they talking about?" Dorien suddenly asked.

"Wish I knew." I replied.

From what I could gather, this Rose apparently had the ability to make herself invisible. Since my adventure in the after-life, I have been able to see things that are invisible to others. Unfortunately, I didn't have the ability to know what I was and what I wasn't supposed to be able to see, leading to awkward situations like this.

"Look." I tried to lead all the attention away from me, "We came here for a reason, we better make use of it."

It took a moment, but everyone eventually agreed.

After some searching, we found some dead bodies. These bodies were of a peculiar sort. They seemed to be skeletons, wearing old and dusty clothes. We could assume that they died long ago. But if they did, that would mean that they, much like R'lyeh were under water for some time, and yet they looked dry. It was as though someone put them there. Rose took a closer examination of the bodies.

"That's weird." she spoke, "Given the state of their bodies, you'd think they've been dead for many years."

"So?" was the obvious question.

"But then what is this?" Rose pointed at something.

I had no idea what I was looking at. The skeleton, unlike the others, had no upper clothing, but it did seem to have some electrical wires going between them, and light-bulbs sticking out of its back.

"Electrical wires?" this surprised Will, "Maybe he's family of yours, Mack."

"Hey, look at this?" somebody said.

"What is it, Dax?" was Will's reply.

I looked at the guy they named Dax. He was holding what looked like a stick with a circle on top.

"Wonder what they needed this for." he said.

"Think that's weird?" Paul said, "Look at that."

He was pointing at one body that was holding a stick. The stick appeared to be made out of wood, was well carved, but its use wasn't immediately clear. My childish imagination would say the body was holding a wand, but I wouldn't go much deeper into that.

"This is interesting." Miranda had picked something up.

I looked at it. It seemed to be a chest plate, bearing the image of a crucifix. Closer examination of the body she took it from revealed that the whole armor bore such images. A crusader? The big guy upstairs must be getting bored again, I thought to myself. But there was something near that body that I found to be more interesting. I took a closer look. It was a book, or what was left of it. The cover was as old as the bodies, and yet there was something familiar about it. I opened it. I couldn't read the text, but the symbols inside it, the drawings... they all looked so familiar.

"Great job." Paul said, "You found the Necronomicon."

It wasn't until Paul said that name that I remembered what it was. Without any regard for what I was holding, I dropped it, just so I could use my cell-phone.

"Hey! Be careful with that!" Paul said.

"And who do you wanna call?" Rose asked, "You've got no reception here."

I ignored what they were saying to me. I dialed the number of a friend of mine. Someone of whom I knew for sure that she had the Necronomicon in her possession. It took a while, but somebody answered at last.

"Dunham." she said.

Dunham? I didn't know anyone by that name. And even if it were my friend's last name, this wasn't her voice, nor would she say that when answering the phone.

"Who are you?" I asked, "Where's Jess?"

"I'm a special agent for the FBI." was the answer, "Who are you?"

FBI? What happened to Jess? I shut my phone and turned back to the rest. They were all surprised, but I wasn't sure what about. Luckily, the SPD agents returned. Unfortunately, the male spoke English with such a heavy accent, it was hard to understand him.

"Jasmine, what did he just say?" I asked.

Before the guy could express how he felt about my question, Jasmine already answered: "He said that we've been called back. So if you need still need us..."

"Need you?" Miranda said, "We've got a lot of things here to analyze back home. And you're the only transport we have!"

The guy said something else, but again we couldn't understand it.

"Where did you learn English?" one of the Americans asked.

The guy started complaining in his own language, but Jasmine calmed him down. She elaborated: "We were told that they found Cthulhu. Or rather, there was this source of heat under the ocean, but it's gone now."

"Gone? How did that happen?" this American girl (not Rose) asked.

"We don't know." Jasmine replied, "But if this Cthulhu is on the move, we've got every reason to think he's behind it."

This was when I got another call from my cell-phone.

"How do you do that?" Miranda asked me.

"Long story." I replied to her before I answered my phone, "Yes?"

"Calling the FBI?" I recognized Hana's voice, "That was a mistake.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know the FBI has Jess's phone?" I retorted.

This was when I realized something else: "Say, now that you're calling, perhaps you could help us."

"Yeah, I heard you needed escort." Hana replied, "It's why I'm calling."

I've heard about how people can use phones to listen in on private conversations, even when you're not calling anyone, so I wasn't too surprised that she knew about what we were talking about. It did make me wonder if she has any sense of privacy.

"Well that's good news." I told her.

"But before I tell you any more, you better tell your police friends that Cthulhu is headed for Monster Island." she told me.

"Monster Island?" I questioned.

"They'll understand." she told me.

"What's that about Monster Island?" Jasmine asked me.

I shrugged: "Apparently Cthulhu is on his way there.

This was cause for alarm to both agents. They hurried back to their machines and flew away.

"What's that all about?" Paul asked.

"Wish I knew." I answered.


	4. Chapter 4

Remembering I still had Hana on the line, I continued talking to her: "What's Monster Island?"

"It's a reserve." Hana explained, "It houses most of Earth's giant monsters."

"Really?" Considering the monsters I had seen in Japan last summer, this surprised me.

"But about your transport..." Hana continued, "I managed to convince one of the ships to come and help you."

"You did?" I couldn't believe it, "How?"

"Well, some of them have actually seen something leaving this island." Hana answered, "So when I told them there may be something on this island that can repel it, most volunteered."

"Alright. And where will they take us?" I asked.

"They'd take you to the nearest airfield." Hana replied.

"Thank you." I said before ending our conversation.

"What is it?" Paul asked.

"We've got a way off." I answered, "The coast guard will take us."

"Great!" Dorien cheered.

"No it isn't." Paul disagreed, "I don't think the coast guard could take us back all the way to our headquarters."

"But they'll be taking us to the mainlands." the one American guy, Mitch, said, "I'm sure I can use one of my dad's planes to get us to our base."

"Well, we better pack up these bodies then." Rose decided.

So we did. We didn't have all the right equipment with us to actually pack them up, but we could place the bodies side by side, and once that coast-guard ship arrived, it became easier to bag and tag them. But as we were doing this, I noticed something in the corner of my eye. Because of my incident with Rose, I pretended to be looking around, so to make it seem like I didn't see anything in particular. As I did so, I spotted the thing I saw in the corner of my eye. It was a man, wearing a robe, big pair of glasses, and apparently covered under some kind of large cloth. I was sure I had seen him before, and judging from the look on his face, he recognized me too.

"Dorien." I asked the person nearest me, "Do you see anybody else here?"

Dorien, surprised I asked, looked around, "No. Why?"

I pretended to shrug it off: "Must be my imagination."

"Really?" she didn't believe me, "Like how you could see that Rose girl when nobody else could?"

"How do you know it's me being able to see her?" I questioned, "While it may well be that she's figuring out how to make herself visible to only one particular person? Subconsciously, of course."

"Is that possible?" Dorien asked.

"But whatever's the case, shouldn't the question really be why she was invisible in the first place?" I wondered, "Was there any particular reason why she was hiding?"

Dorien looked aghast. Clearly she hadn't thought of that herself before.

While she was thinking about it, I looked around again. The man had vanished from my sight.

"Who's there!" Will suddenly called out.

"What is it?" Mitch asked him.

"I keep hearing someone talk, but I can't see him." Will explained, "He keeps saying something about... muggles?"

If I have a way of seeing things I'm not supposed to, why wouldn't someone like Will have a way of hearing things others can't? That's why I didn't question this, while the others of my team did. This questioning of theirs had them distracted, so I could sneak away and look for this man. Now that Will said he talks about muggles, I know who it is he was talking about and why he looked so familiar.

I walked towards what looked like a rock (on this island, you can't be too sure about what you're walking into). Behind it, there was the man in question. I didn't know who he was talking to, or what he was using to talk into (a man like him wouldn't use a cell-phone). But just to draw his attention, I slipped the cloth off him. He turned, spooked at what I did, and dropped his... mirror?

"You... could see me?" he wasn't sure of what was happening.

Since he wasn't the first to ask me that question today, I regained my composure: "Potter, I presume."

With this, even the man, Potter, seemed to remember why he was here: "Don't act posh, especially since this is your fault."

"Mine?" I wondered.

"If you had let me take the Necronomicon with me, it would be in safe hands, so none of this would have happened." Potter explained.

"Safe hands?" this I found hard to believe, "Whose hands would that be?"

"It would be kept in a vault at the Ministry of Magic." Potter explained.

"Kept in the hands of politicians." I snickered, "Somehow I don't feel safer knowing that."

"Regardless..." Potter resumed, "... it's because you interfered that your friend is dead, that Cthulhu is loose and..."

"Wait, what did you just say?" I interrupted, "My friend's dead?"

"Yeah. You don't know?" Potter was genuinely surprised.

I shook my head: "What exactly happened?"

"We're not sure." Potter explained, "The Ministry detected magic being used in a muggle town."

There was that word again, "muggle". Before I could ask him what it meant, he continued: "At first they thought it was something Rus... a local wizard did, so we were questioning her at first. Since she's known for a lot of mischief, nobody believed her at first. By the time they did, it was already too late. The muggle authorities found your friend's body."

I didn't even care to ask for the meaning of the word "muggle" anymore. The news that Jess, the first friend I made in the US, had died. Especially after what we went through back then... that was a little too much to take in.

"Are you alright?" Potter asked.

He noticed I was distracted just then, so I shook my head, trying to snap back to the present.

"As I was saying, since they have found her before we did, we can't erase their memories now, without it raising too many questions."

"Is that more important to you?" I nearly shouted.

"We may be wizards, but we can't bring her back to life." Potter answered.

"That's not what I meant." I told him, "A girl died, a book that can raise a giant monster is stolen, and the first thing you can think about is erasing people's memories?"

"It is very important that you muggles don't know about our existence." Potter explained.

I suddenly understood what he meant by muggle. He meant regular people, not a wizard such as himself.

"More important than the lives of others?" I questioned.

Potter sighed: "I'm sorry. I've been living in this world for so long, I've been taking who we are and what we do as only natural. I almost forgot what life as a muggle is."

This calmed me down (though not enough): "So what are you doing here?"

"I came here as soon as I heard the island had arisen." Potter explained, "From the looks of it, it's worse than I thought."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Cthulhu didn't just rise from his grave." Potter answered, "He has absorbed the powers of the ones who raised him."

I wasn't sure how he knew that, but that wasn't the first thing that came to mind: "Is that bad?"

Potter was about to answer, but then changed his mind: "I hope not. But there's only one way to know for sure."

"Which is...?" I wondered.

"Step closer." he commanded me.

I raised an eyebrow, so he added: "You want to know? Step closer!"

I was reluctant, since I wasn't sure what he was really planning to do, but I did so anyway.

"Where did you say Cthulhu was headed?" he asked me.

"Er... Monster Island?" I answered.


	5. Chapter 5

Before I knew it, he grabbed hold me, and next thing I knew, I was on another island. Given the sort of feeling that R'lyeh gave me, I should be relieved. However, since I had no idea how I got there, I was still in a state of shock.

"What just happened?" I asked Potter.

"We apparated." was his answer.

I cocked my head, so he explained: "I transported us off that island and onto this one."

"You mean you teleported us?" I questioned.

"If you prefer, yes." was his abrupt answer.

From the way he sounded, he didn't seem like he wanted to answer any more of my questions. Even if I did, I don't think he would have been able to hear me, because then I heard the sound of planes approaching us. I didn't see any yet, but I soon realized I wasn't the only one who heard them, as suddenly a few animals roared. I didn't recognize any of the roars, so I looked what could cause them. I saw loads of animals, none of which I recognized, all of which were giants. One of them moved on all fours, had spikes on its back and a long snout. Another resembled a pterodactyl, except twenty times larger (if not much larger than I estimated), and yet still capable of lifting itself off the ground. There were also some monsters that resembled bugs. One of them looked like a giant butterfly, another looked like a beetle (albeit with only four limbs, wings that it's not using, and drills for hands).

"Hagrid would have loved it here." Potter said.

I had no idea who or what Hagrid is, but by saying this, he did wake me from the trance that I was in, so I spoke: "What exactly did you want to show me?"

"If we're lucky, nothing at all." Potter replied.

"Why are you being so vague?" I asked.

"In my experience, people don't believe you when you tell them anything." Potter answered, "So I show them things instead."

I was on an island with giant monsters, after I teleported from another island that was supposed to exist in legends only. And that's not to mention some other things I had gone through by then. Why should I not believe whatever else Potter had to say? Before I could ask him that, those planes I heard arrived. They weren't really planes, at least not the conventional ones that I'm familiar with. In fact I only recognized two of them, and those were the ones I saw Jasmine and her colleague fly with. They were accompanied by three other similar planes. All five of these somehow combined to form one giant robot. After that, three other machines appeared. These machines, for reasons I'm not sure, resembled animals. One was a hawk, the other a lion, and yet another looked like a dolphin. These three machines, too, combined into one giant robot. A dialogue of some kind was going on between these two robots, but they were speaking Japanese so I couldn't understand a word of it. But even if I did, there were other problems, such as the giants of this island that were less than pleased with these robots' presence. Faster than any of these monsters could move, something flew in between the robots and the monsters. I'm still not sure what it was, but after some fireworks, it too changed into a giant... something or other (it didn't look like a robot, but since it looked humanoid I wasn't sure if I should call it a monster either). It had green wings on its back, and seemed to have a wizard's hat on its head.

"Finally." Potter sounded, "I almost thought the wizards would let the muggles handle this themselves."

"Well we wouldn't be very good muggles if let you wizards do all the heavy-lifting, would we?" I snapped back.

Potter looked back at me, surprised. I'd guess he didn't think I'd know what "muggle" meant.

As we spoke, something happened in the waters. Whatever it was, it somehow caused some of the water to go up, as if a mountain was rising from underneath it. It instantly calmed down the giant monsters, and the giant robots turned to face whatever was coming out of the water. After a while, it appeared. The one I had read about, but never thought I'd actually see it with my own eyes. And even if I did, this wasn't at all what I imagined him to look like. Sure, all of the physical characteristics that he was described with were present. Such as the scaled skin, the giant bat-like wings, the octopus head with all the tentacles dangling down. And yet, seeing it was such a strange sight to behold, I couldn't immediately register him.

"That's... that's..." I couldn't think of the right thing to say.

"Yes." Potter said, "That's Cthulhu."

All of the giant monster started roaring at Cthulhu, but he didn't seem to at all be intimidated by their sounds. The three giant robots took defensive stances, but Cthulhu didn't back down. He raised a hand and pointed it to the ground. Lights shot from it, and the ground beneath the giants began to move. Within seconds, another monster emerged. This one resembled a golden dragon, about the same size as every other monster present, with two tails and three heads, shooting lightning from its mouths. This came as quite a surprise to everyone present.

"That's what I was afraid of." Potter said.

I turned to look at him, at which point he elaborated: "Like I said, he absorbed the powers from the ones that raised him. So now he can revive old monsters."

"Oh." was all I could say. What do you say when you hear one of the most powerful beings ever just became more powerful.

The giant monsters immediately focused themselves on this three-headed dragon, while the giant robots started their defense against Cthulhu. Rocks were thrown, punches were dealt, swords slashed (don't ask), grounds shook, but in the end all it did was wound most of the monsters (if not kill them) and damage the giant robots. Two giant robots couldn't stop him, and clearly three were still not enough. I was beginning to wonder whether Cthulhu could be stopped if the monsters helped, and if that was the reason why that dragon was revived. It was almost as though there was a limit to Cthulhu's abilities. Either that, or he's just too lazy to do much himself. I couldn't think about this any further, as Potter started crying in agony.

"What's wrong?" I asked, as I saw him putting his hands against his head, like anyone who's suffering from a severe headache would.

"He's... I can't..." he couldn't bring out anything coherent.

I soon noticed that the giant robots seemed to be suffering the same problems, so I assumed the pilots were having headaches too. But why were they affected, and I wasn't? It was this sort of thinking that lead me to notice too late that Cthulhu was looking straight at me. He could see me? And that's a question asked by a guy who can see invisible things. I didn't know what to do. If it were just another monster rampaging, not caring about the smaller beings it may or may not be squishing, it wouldn't be a problem. But how do you run away from something that's looking directly at you? Suddenly, before I had any awareness of what was happening, something grabbed me and Potter, picked us up and ran away. This shook me awake, only to see too many things at once. Some kind of furry thing with moth-like wings attacked Cthulhu, while I was being carried away by a woman who was ten times my own size.

"Wha... what's going on?" I asked.

"Something strange to both of us." the woman replied.

Potter seemed to still be suffering from his headaches, so he couldn't have any more bearing on what's going on than I did (which was already very little).

As the woman was carrying us away, that furry moth I was attacking Cthulhu from above him, forcing the latter to fly up himself. In so doing, the... thing flew away, and Cthulhu followed, along with the three-headed dragon.

"Go, Insectosaurus!" I heard someone cheer him on.

We had arrived at where the woman was taking us. There, I saw the one who was cheering on... the Insectosaurus (I guess he meant that furry thing), who turned out to be an amphibian looking humanoid, that was accompanied by... a humanoid cockroach.

"Now I must be going crazy." I said.

"Nah, you'll get used to it after a while." the woman said.


	6. Chapter 6

"What were they doing here?" the cockroach-man wondered, "Isn't this supposed to be restricted for tourists?"

I would have had a clever reply at the ready if this were just another man, but since it was a cockroach wearing a lab-coat, I had nothing.

"Come on, Doctor." the giant woman said, "You never thought of going anywhere just for the rush?"

"If he didn't, you think he'd be here?" the amphibian replied, "As he is?"

"I never did anything for a "rush"!" the cockroach shouted.

This was when Potter started to come to: "Wha... what's going on?"

"Oh!" the giant woman finally decided to put us both down, "Looks like you're waking up."

I sighed: "Looks like you've got a talent for stating the obvious. Except for what's happening."

"Isn't THAT obvious?" the amphibian wondered.

"What are you?" Potter asked, "Are you with the muggles?"

Everyone looked surprised at the word, so I explained: "Potter, the only people who don't know what a muggle is are the muggles themselves. Surprised you didn't know that."

Potter scoffed: "Sorry, it's been so long since I've been around muggles myself."

"Never mind that." I stopped him, and turned to the other three, "What are you?"

"If we told you, we'd have to kill you." the amphibian said.

"Come on, Missing Link." the giant woman pleaded, "We can't just show up without raising a few questions."

"But it's never up to us to answer them." the cockroach replied.

While they were deciding on... telling me anything, I started my own discussion with Potter: "Can you tell me what happened back there?"

"You know that Cthulhu is telepathic?" Potter asked, "He was trying to get inside my mind."

I wanted to give a reply, but he wasn't finished: "I tried Occlumancy to stop him, but he was too strong. I could hold on for only so long, until...

I have read about Occlumancy before, so I understood what he meant: "Until you were too tired and passed out."

"But why didn't he affect you?" Potter asked, "I mean, I saw what he did to the others. Why weren't you affected?"

Is this another one of my... abilities? To not let anything or anyone enter my head?

"Is that true?" the cockroach asked, "Do you remain unaffected by what that monster does?"

"How do you know that that's the case?" I questioned, "What if he just didn't think I was interesting enough?"

"Hey, look at that!" the amphibian spoke.

We all looked at what he was pointing. At first glance, it looked like an island, but there were these strange vibrations on that island, that resembled the pumping of a vein. On that island seemed to be strange rocks, shaped like spikes, three lines of them. Suddenly it sank into the ocean. So it was a living thing after all.

"Was that...?" the amphibian wondered.

"Was that what?" the giant woman asked.

"Must be." the cockroach said, "This island is his home. He probably doesn't like what's been done to it."

"Who?" the giant woman asked.

"Gojira." the cockroach finally answered.

The amphibian seemed confused: "Er... don't you mean..."

"His name is and always has been Gojira." the cockroach interrupted, "Not that bastardized word you Americans love to call him."

"Hey!" the giant woman suddenly remembered, "Shouldn't we check on Insectosaurus?"

"You're right." the cockroach said, "Get back in."

It wasn't until the cockroach pointed to it that I even noticed there was a jet on the island. Maybe after seeing all the things I had seen until then, a jet didn't seem all that impressive.

My phone rang, so I answered: "Yes?"

"We got trouble." I immediately recognized Hana's voice.

"No kidding." I remarked.

"Those three monsters that just left Monster Island, they're near the Washington coast now." Hana explained.

"How's that any trouble?" I asked, "Isn't that where the 4400 live? I'm sure they can handle it."

"No they can't." Hana said, "I just intercepted a few calls. Everyone's complaining about headaches, all at the same time."

In other words, we have ourselves one giant monster with enough strength to give everybody within reach headaches. It was then I realized something else.

"Potter, why aren't the monsters affected?" I asked.

"I'm sorry?" he didn't understand.

"Cthulhu seems to give everyone a headache, but the giant monsters don't seem to get any aches." I elaborated, "Why?"

"Cthulhu has been asleep for many years." Potter explained, "He may have to regain some of his strength first."

In which case, only one possible solution came to mind, so I turned to those others again: "Excuse me!"

Only the cockroach turned: "What do you want?"

"Besides that... Insectosauros of yours, or that Gojira, are there any other giant monsters?" I asked.

"Why?" the cockroach wondered.


	7. Chapter 7

"Out of the question!" was the commanding officer's response as the cockroach-man (or Dr. Cockroach as he preferred to be called) explained my idea to him.

"We are hardly any match for this one giant." Cockroach explained.

"I cannot authorize anyone to hunt for other monsters." the commander said, "At best, I can contact H.E.A.T. and tell them to take care of it."

"H.E.A.T.?" whatever that meant to these people, it made Cockroach skeptic, "I thought their monster was unreliable!"

"I said it's the best I can do." the commander continued.

"And what about UGM?" Cockroach pressed on, "The EDF?"

"They are trained to fight monsters, not capture them." the commander continued, "And from what you told me, they wouldn't be any help in fighting this one."

Cockroach sighed: "I'm sure you'll do what you can."

He switched off the screen after that.

"What about you?" the giant woman turned to me.

"Me?" my heart raced at that moment.

"You're the only one who doesn't get any headaches from that Cthulhu." she explained.

Here we go again: "Even if that were true, what do you expect me to do? I'm no giant, nor can I turn into one. I'm no pilot, so I can't fly a plane, nor control a giant robot. I'm basically useless to you lot."

"This coming from the bloke who took the Necronomicon in the first place." Potter remarked.

"The Necker... what?" the giant woman questioned.

"What's that got to do with it?" I asked Potter.

"Quite simple, really." Potter explained, "If you didn't take it from me, it would have been in safe hands. So nobody would have used it to wake up Cthulhu. And now that he's awake, you don't know how to stop him."

"So what?" I snapped back, "You're saying I resurrected him?"

"You might as well have." Potter replied.

"Wait a minute!" the amphibian interjected, "Are you saying that this is all your fault?"

"You can't deny that." Potter said.

"You know..." I brought up, "At the time, you didn't give me any reason to trust you. And now you're trying to turn me into a scapegoat, I have even less reasons to trust now than I did before. So maybe we should start blaming you instead!"

"Boys! Stop arguing!" the giant woman said, "This is hardly the time to point fingers at each other."

"My point exactly." I mumbled.

The giant woman pointed at me threateningly. I was agreeing with her, and yet she still wanted me to shut up.

I got a call. I answered, and recognized Hana's voice: "Thought you want to see this."

On my screen, I saw she was sending me satellite images. On those images, I recognized Cthulhu, as well as that three-headed dragon, fighting that Insectosaurus. But they weren't alone. Fighting alongside Insectosaurus was what looked like two lizards. One of the two seemed more light-weighted than the other. I dare say it was quicker than the other as well. Still, the heavier-weighted was stronger and didn't need to run around as much as the lighter one. Given the three rows of spikes on their backs, they reminded me of that island I saw earlier. I guessed the heavier one was the one they called Gojira. No idea about the smaller one, though it seemed to spending most of its time protecting one small white ship. Besides them there was also something... actually, I have no idea what it was. It seemed to have tentacles at its head, much like Cthulhu, though it had longer arms, and it seemed to have smaller things falling off it and finding its way onto the monsters they were fighting. Joining them was a gray-and-red giant, which looked humanoid. It looked a little like those Ultramen I've heard of before, though from what little I know about them, they appear mostly in Japan. This one seemed to have left the Washington shore, meaning it's American.

I saw how this Gojira breathed some kind of green fire, which didn't affect Cthulhu much. True, he seemed to be confused by the attack, but it didn't hurt him much. The three-headed dragon flew to attack Gojira but the gray-and-red giant stopped it. This gave room for the lighter lizard (whom I called Jira in my head) to attack Cthulhu, but all it had to do was stamp in the water, causing a tidal wave, which nearly hit the white ship, so Jira ran to protect that ship. The stranger monster (whom I'll call Longarms) yanked Cthulhu's tentacles, which distracted him long enough for Insectosaurus to try and tear its wings off. This was when some kind of purple light appeared that hit both monsters. Meanwhile, the three-headed dragon had fallen in the water, so Gojira and the gray-and-red giant could start their attack on Cthulhu. The latter started flying, so Gojira breathed its green fire again, missing every shot. The gray-and-red giant jumped to catch Cthulhu, but the latter hit it with its wing, knocking the giant man down. Once he was down, a green glow engulfed the gray-and-red giant, upon which he... just disappeared. Jira was so preoccupied with that white ship, it took Cthulhu little to no effort to step on its tail, pulling it back, and use it like a whip to smash down the remaining three giants. With this, Cthulhu could walk upon shore, the three-headed dragon following him.

"Someone's trying to contact you." Hana's voice sounded, "Someone called Magiel."

"Magiel?" I couldn't believe it, "Let her through."

I put my phone back to my ear to listen to her: "Yes?"

"Looks like you humans need our help." Magiel said.

"What, now you're helping us?" I questioned.

"We vowed to never interfere, and only help you when it's absolutely necessary." Magiel explained.

"Wait." Potter tried to interrupt, "You're on the phone with Magiel herself?"

"What's it to you?" I bit back.

"Who's Magiel?" the giant woman asked.

"I may have the solution to your problem." I recognized another voice talking through my phone.

"Daizyujin?" I wanted to be sure.

"By now you've probably noticed some... abnormalities about yourself." Daizyujin said.

"No kidding." I replied.

"When we restored your body, we made a few adjustments." he explained, "It is truly remarkable how weak and unfinished the human body really is."

"Yeah, yeah..." I interrupted, "I'd love to know all about it. But what about that solution?"

"I will come down to fight Cthulhu myself." he replied.

"Great!" I said, "One god versus another."

"I cannot, however, guarantee I'd win." he further explained, "That's why I'll need your help too."

"Mine?" I explained, "How could I possibly help?"

"I'm at my strongest when my Zyurangers are inside of me." Daizyujin explained, "Unfortunately, their bodies alone won't be able to endure what they have to do. But your body will."

"You must be joking." I said.

"I never tell jokes." Daizyujin replied.

I paused, during which Daizyujin added: "You might also want to wear a protective suit when you fight with me."

This didn't do anything to built up whatever little confidence I might have had. But if this really was the only way to save the world, I had no other options.

"Alright, I'll do it." I said, upon which I hung up, and turned to Potter, "Potter, can you still apparate?"

"Er..." he didn't seem to have expected that question, "Yes? Why?"


	8. Chapter 8

I gave Potter the exact address where I had to be, so he apparated me there. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but it was the fastest I knew. With this, I was back at the SGS Museum's doorstep.

"Where are we then?" Potter asked.

"Not the most inconspicuous spot I could think of." I replied, looking at the people that saw us.

"All you did was give me an address." Potter said in his defense.

"Well, I'm sure you know a way to deal with these people." I said, as I ran inside.

I heard Potter yell something at me, but I ignored him.

Once I was inside, I immediately headed for that testing room, where I'd find the Faiz-gear. Daizyujin told me I needed a protective suit, so I decided to use this gear. Once I made it inside the room, however, Napoleon felt the need to appear on the screens.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I ignored him. I put on the belt and opened the cell-phone that came with it. On its screen, there were several combinations of numbers, but only one truly stuck out. That combination was "555", followed by the word "henshin". I didn't know what the word "henshin" meant, but it was the first combination on the screen, so I assumed it would be the most important one.

"Don't do that!" Napoleon tried to stop me, "It's dangerous."

"You'll have to come out of... wherever you're broadcasting from to stop me." I replied.

I pressed "555", upon which the phone said "Standing by."

I immediately inserted the phone into the belt, and caught by surprise when it said "Complete."

"That's new." I said.

This was when some kind of red light started to engulf me, and almost immediately... I wasn't sure what I was seeing, but it appeared as though there was a yellow visor before my eyes, as if I was wearing a helmet.

"How... how did you do that?" Napoleon wondered.

I looked at my hands. I was wearing black and gray gloves, there was a red line going down both of my sleeves (while the sleeves themselves were black).

"You mean to tell me you could use that gear the whole time?" Napoleon asked.

This woke me from the awe I was in, so I replied: "I'd love to tell you all about it, but I've got someone waiting for me."

In order for me to leave the building, I had to go through the actual museum. In so doing, I ended up in the lobby, where I met with five familiar faces.

"Didn't think I'd ever see you Zyurangers again." I said.

One of them, whom I recognized as Geki, replied: "Is that you?"

"What is that you're wearing?" the girl, Mei if memory serves, asked.

"A protective suit." I answered, "And even if I knew more about it, I can't tell you. Comes with the job."

"That's your protective suit?" this was the first time I even noticed a sixth person, Hikaru, was there, "But I thought..."

He stopped mid-sentence. Hikaru wasn't one of the Zyurangers, but he was associated with Magiel, so it sort of made sense for him to be there. What didn't make sense was the fact that he stopped talking so abruptly.

"You thought what?" I asked.

"Never mind." he said, "I'm sure you know what you're doing."

He motioned to the other five to follow him.

All seven of us left the museum. I didn't know where we were going, but that wasn't the most immediate question on my mind. As we left, I saw Potter, talking to two other people. One male and one female, wearing a black and yellow jacket respectively, each of which had the word "landick" printed on them. After they were done talking to Potter, they both inserted a card into some kind of hand-held device. which caused some kind of light and spark effects. What they did, I don't think I'll ever know, but since I had other matters on my mind, I didn't think much about this anymore.


	9. Chapter 9

Following the others, I ended up at a train. This probably doesn't seem very significant, however the train in question wasn't stationed at a station, wasn't on any rails, looked like one of those old-fashioned locomotives, and was too large to be able to move.

"What are you waiting for?" Hikaru asked, "Get in!"

I hesitated, because I couldn't believe this thing could bring us anywhere, but for the moment I thought I should humor him. I got on board, as did the Zyurangers. Hikaru, I suspected, was the conductor, so he had to (because I don't know the right word) pilot the train. Once we were all seated, the train started moving after all. As I looked outside the window, I saw that the train was flying (perhaps "piloting the train" was the right choice of words after all). As we were... flying, the Zyurangers got ready as well. They took some kind of device from their belts, held it up, shouted... Dino-something (I couldn't make out the word they were using), and suddenly they too had changed into their protective suits.

"So..." I realized we had some time before we arrive where we're supposed to be, so I thought we could talk this through first.

"How did you get from the Pacific to your own country?" the one called Dan asked me, instead of waiting for me to finish my sentence.

"Excuse me?" I couldn't quite understand their question.

"We were about to head to where you were." Dan explained, "But then Magiel told us you had somehow disappeared and reappeared somewhere else."

Since regular cell-phones could be traced, it seemed reasonable to me that Magiel (who gave me my phone in the first place) had her own way of tracing her phones as well.

"You guys met that guy with those glasses?" I ask, "With that scar on his forehead? He teleported me."

"You mean you're friends with the boy who lived?" the one called Boi asked.

"Er... what?" what did he mean by that?

"That's not important." the one called Goushi said, "We better tell him what we're up to."

Geki nodded: "Daizyujin wants to fight Cthulhu."

"That much I gathered." I replied.

"Yes." Geki said, "But it works best if we're inside him."

This didn't make sense: "Inside him?"

"He's at his strongest when we put our will, our very being into him." Mei elaborated.

This made a little more sense: "A god is only as strong as the people who believe in him."

I don't know if it was what I said, or the way I said it, but it caused an awkward silence.

"What does this have to do with me?" I tried to get us back on track (no pun intended).

"You probably noticed you're a bit different now then you were before." Geki started, "You're stronger, faster,..."

Among other things, I thought to myself: "Yes."

"Which means you're not like other humans." Geki continued, "Neither are we."

"You're not?" I wondered.

"You evolved from apes." Goushi explained, "We evolved from dinosaurs."

"You're kidding me." I said.

"It's true." Dan said, "Which makes us much stronger than regular humans, and less susceptible to Cthulhu's telepathy."

"You even more so, since your body isn't natural." Goushi added, "So the five of us, along with you, should be enough to make Daizyujin strong enough against Cthulhu."

"We're about to arrive at our destination, please prepare to disembark." I heard Hikaru speak over the PA.

"That was fast." I remarked.

"It's a magical train." Mei explained.

"Why aren't we slowing down?" I wondered.

"No need." Geki replied, "Come on."

He motioned for everyone to get up and head to the exit. I was a little reluctant, but since they told me they needed me for this, I didn't have much of a choice.

The door was opened. Through the opening, I could see that, not only was the train still moving, it also was still airborne. Was I supposed to just jump off? One by one, the Zyurangers jumped off. In doing so, they left my field of vision, so I could see more of the outside eventually. As such, I could see that we were flying over Seattle. In the city, I saw cars standing still, people on the roof all hailing the one giant winged monster, Cthulhu. But beside that monster was another giant. This one resembled Daizyujin, except that he seemed to be wearing some kind of dragon-helmet on his helmet, along with what looked like shoulder-pads, and with white and golden claws. This made me remember there were other monsters as well. What happened to them? I looked over to the Ocean, where I saw their bodies. I thought they were dead at first, until I saw Gojira trying to move its arm. So at least he's not dead, but his fight with Cthulhu has tired it out.

"Are you ready for this?" Mei asked me.

I looked at her: "What?"

"Don't worry." she tried to reassure me, "You'll be alright."

She then jumped out of the train, and somehow landed onto Daizyujin's head. Was I supposed to jump too?

"Can't you fly a little closer?" I shouted, hoping that Hikaru could hear me.

I didn't hear anything from Hikaru, so I assumed he didn't hear me. Still, the train was circling around Daizyujin, so all I had to do was wait until it was close enough. And since Cthulhu was beginning to become aware of our presence, it better happened soon. But no matter how close we got, the distance was still too great. I guess even Hikaru thought I had the same strength of the Zyurangers, so as far as he was concerned, I had to be able to make that jump. In the end, I couldn't make that jump. At least not before Cthulhu turned around and started to attack Daizyujin.


	10. Chapter 10

Daizyujin shot what I can only describe as lightning from his... body, but that didn't seem to faze Cthulhu. The latter instead resorted to, with one wave of his hand, gather up many of the citizens of Seattle. These people somehow manage to climb on top of each other, hold on to each other, all in such a way that this many people formed one giant man. This... gathering of people attacked Daizyujin, who of course couldn't fight back.

"This is getting worse by the second." I heard Hikaru say, "You have to get aboard him now!"

I wondered what difference that would make. Daizyujin wouldn't attack innocent civilians, so even if he'd somehow become stronger with me inside, it still wouldn't make a difference. I wish I could tell Hikaru that, but I still wasn't sure if he could hear me.

"What's going on here?" I suddenly heard Potter's voice.

I turned to look, and there he was: "You? How did you get here?"

Potter cocked his head: "Is that you?"

"How did you know where I was?" I asked him.

"I wasn't sure." Potter explained, "But this train appeared on the Muggle news, so I thought you might have something to do with it."

Made sense to me. He knew the wizarding world better than me, so he would recognize a train that was part of that world. But just as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I realized something else.

"Wait, you don't have any headaches?" I asked.

"I told you, I've done some Occlumancy in the past." he explained, "He just caught me off guard before, but now I'm prepared."

This gave me an idea: "Think you can use that Occlumancy on those people out there?"

I pointed to that giant gathering of people, to which Potter replied: "I don't think I'm strong enough for that."

That was a bummer, I thought to myself, but once Daizyujin got in my field of vision, I said: "Maybe you won't have to. Can you apparate us inside that?"

Potter looked at what I was pointing, then nodded, and did exactly as I suggested.

Once inside... what looked more like a cockpit than anything else, the Zyurangers turned to look at us.

"What took you so lo... who's he?" Geki asked.

"Probably the only one who can help us." I replied, "Potter, do your thing."

"Do what?" he didn't fully understand.

"Geki..." I asked, "How do we... give our strength to Daizyujin?"

The Zyurangers explained to us how we had to do what we were supposed to do. And it worked. The gathering of people started to let go of each other (gradually, of course) so they stopped being an obstacle. Though he didn't express it verbally, Cthulhu was enraged with this. He pointed to one of the monsters in the ocean. It was that three-headed dragon from before, which he gave back its strength. But before he could do anything, I saw that long-armed monster getting up and stopping the monster. Meanwhile, both Jira and Gojira had gotten up as well and headed towards Cthulhu.

"Sectumsempra!" Potter shouted.

Somehow, that word gave Cthulhu a heavy blow, which made him back off. This gave room for Jira to breath what looked like some kind of gas on Cthulhu, which got ignited by Gojira's green breath, setting Cthulhu on fire.

Potter felt eager to try something else: "Avada Keda..."

"Don't!" Daizyujin himself interrupted, "If we kill him here, we won't be sure of his death."

"What do you mean?" Potter wondered.

"We may destroy his body, but his mind can escape." Daizyujin explained, "No, there's only one way to be sure."

"And what would that be?" I asked.

"Trust me." he said.

With that said, Daizyujin grabbed hold of Cthulhu. Somehow, Daizyujin managed to make himself fly up. Higher and higher, as if he was trying to leave Earth's atmosphere. This was when my body stopped obeying my commands. I realized that as soon as my body started to stand stiff, as did the Zyurangers, and I saw Potter make a move in the corner of my eye, but I couldn't turn my head to look. That move he was making was the same one he makes every time he apparates. That became obvious once all seven of us disappeared from this cockpit.


	11. Chapter 11

We ended up... or more accurately speaking, I ended up somewhere in the clouds. Everywhere I looked, there was nothing but the sky and the clouds. Whether I was looking in front of me, left, right, behind, above or below me, there was no ground at all. I supposed this would explain why I wasn't falling, but that would only make sense in the mind of a child. So this place is a child's idea of what a world without gravity is like? As I kept speculating about this, Daizyujin suddenly appeared before me. And I don't mean a giant man suddenly popped up, Daizyujin had shrunk himself down to my size. Either that, or I had grown to his size. Either way, I guess it's easier for both of us if we talked at the same level.

"Where are we?" I asked him.

"More important than where, is why." Daizyujin replied.

"Er... very well." I replied, confused, "Why are we here?"

"What were you doing back there?" he asked.

This was rude, I thought to myself, so I said: "I asked first."

"This is no time for juvenile disputes." Daizyujin replied, "I ask again, what were you doing?"

Hoping that he would answer my question eventually, I answered his first: "I was helping you."

"Were you?" he questioned, "You didn't jump when you were told to. You involved someone in this battle who shouldn't be. You..."

"You mean Potter?" I interrupted, "I didn't ask him to join in."

"And you didn't have a protective suit!" was his final point.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, surprised, "I got the Faiz-suit."

"That is not what I meant." Daizyujin said, "Magiel granted you the power over magic, didn't she?"

"Yeah, and some power that turned out to be." I retorted, "It doesn't do anything."

"We told you, the more courage you show, the more magic you receive." Daizyujin explained, "I'd have thought by now you'd have been granted the power to summon an armor. But now I see you have to use somebody else's."

"That's a big assumption." I replied, "Besides, Potter didn't need one."

"Don't change the subject!" Daizyujin interrupted, "We thought you deserved the power, because of the courage you showed in facing God and the Devil."

Unless I'm mistaking, I was already dead at the time. It was easier to show courage when you know you can't die anymore.

"You leave us with no choice..." Daizyujin said, "... but to take the magic away from you."

I suppose I should be devastated, but I wasn't. Not because I'm arrogant enough to think I could live without magic, but because I never quite figured out how to use magic anyway. I know I had said before that my magic made me a valuable asset to SGS, but at the time I thought some of the things I did were magical. By now I know it was something else (something having to do with my "chi" which gets unleashed through my use of Jyuken, or something like that). In other words, I never really did use magic. At least none of the one that Magiel had granted me, so I don't think I'd notice a difference if it was gone.

"If I give it up, will you then explain to me what this place is?" I asked.

Daizyujin made this gesture as though he sighed, but explained anyway: "We're inside your head."

This I didn't understand: "Inside my head?"

"There was no time to fully brief you on this." he continued, "The only way I could think of to stop Cthulhu, was to throw him into the sun."

"But... didn't you say that..." I started, but got interrupted.

"My mind would enter your body." he continued, "All six of you. Counting Potter, that made seven. So I'd be inside you, all of us leaving my body, which is now flying towards the sun, along with Cthulhu."

"Instantly killing him, without any hope for survival." I replied.

"Correct." Daizyujin said, "With no other living thing around, he couldn't hope to enter another body."

"Not even yours?" I questioned.

"Mine wasn't organic." Daizyujin replied, "He might have found a way to enter my body, but it would have been too late before he does."

"That was a big gamble." I replied, "I mean, you were mistaken about me."

"Only because you humans tend to be unpredictable." he explained, "Gods, on the other hand, aren't."

That made sense, so I merely nodded.

"By now, Cthulhu should have reached the sun already." Daizyujin continued, "The Zyurangers will return to heaven, while you will wake up in your own bed."


	12. Chapter 12

Sure enough, true to his word, I woke up in my own bed, still fully clothed. And as expected, my cell-phone (which was supposed to be the source of my magic powers) had disappeared from my pockets. As for the Faiz-suit, it had disappeared. All that was left was the belt. I guessed that after a certain period of inactivity, the suit just deactivates itself.

"Is this your house?" I recognized Potter's voice.

I looked in the direction where I heard the voice from. He was in my apartment?

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"That... god wanted to transport me home." Potter explained, "But I told him there are safety measures put in place to prevent unwanted guests. I didn't know how it will react to him transporting me."

"So he brought you here instead." I understood.

"He thought you were harmless enough." Potter said.

"That must've been a hard pill for you to swallow." I remarked.

"Not really." Potter replied, "After what I have seen you do."

This surprised me: "I hardly did a thing. If anything, we wouldn't have needed to go through all this if it wasn't for..."

I paused then. Because this was the moment it truly hit me. That my friend Jess was dead. And in part it was my fault. If I didn't help her find the Necronomicon last year, she wouldn't have been targeted by... whoever wanted to raise Cthulhu.

"Yes. I know." Potter said, breaking the silence I had started, "But I saw you were ready to do something about this yourself."

"I didn't have much of a choice there." I said.

"Yeah, I know what you mean." he said this with such a tone, almost implying he had gone through something similar in his life.

"Do I wanna know what you mean by that?" I asked.

"It's a long story." Potter said, "One I've shared with only one other muggle so far."

In other words, the answer was no. But that wasn't what was really on my mind: "Meanwhile I got a story of my own to tell at work."

"If you want, I could always erase their memories." Potter suggested.

I shook my head: "No, I don't think that'll work, Potter."

" "Potter" is what my professors called me." Potter replied, "My friends call me Harry."

"And since when are we friends?" I questioned.

Potter sighed: "You gained my trust, and yet I haven't gotten yours. What do I have to do to gain it?"

There was one thing that came to mind, but I wasn't sure how he could help me with that. He may be a wizard, but that doesn't necessarily mean he can help me with everything. But it was always worth a try: "Well... let's just say that back in the States, you're not the only enemy I made."


	13. Chapter 13

I explained to Potter how my stay got me into quite a bit of trouble. For one thing, I was suspected to have had something to do with the murder of some couple (who were murdered by some disfigured people in West-Virginia), I was held up at customs holding a strange device which they couldn't identify, but apparently got the attention of some agency called T.E.C.,... I actually had to get Potter to read my journal, so he would know the full story about what happened to me. He told me he couldn't solve all those problems with a wave of his wand (which I suspected). But his job did allow him to work closely for the Minister of Magic, who could talk to the British Prime Minister, who in turn could make a few arrangements, so the American authorities would hear me out, and eventually my name would be cleared, and suddenly I wouldn't be on their most wanted list anymore.

Pittsburgh International Airport, Pennsylvania, October 15, 2009:

Because of all the official paperwork and all the people this involved, it took them months to hear me out (more than once), Still, at long last, all my problems have been solved, and now I can finally return home.

While in the terminal, there was very little for me to do. I didn't have a chance to buy myself anything to read while I was either waiting to board my plane, or even while I'm on the plane. Worst part of all was that in order for me to take the earliest plane home, I had to take this plane to go to Massachusetts first and pick the plane home there. Which altogether meant that my trip would last longer than I'd love it to.

So with nothing to do, I looked outside. I saw how planes were being towed, loaded,... altogether being prepared to for their trips. But as I watched, I saw something peculiar. Something crawled up one of the planes' wheels, and entered it from there. It looked human, albeit half the size of a normal human, brown, almost like a rotting corpse, and very fast. I looked away. I wasn't entirely sure of what I saw, but it didn't look particularly friendly. I thought of warning somebody, but as I turned to look for someone, I saw something else that was weird. There was a man, holding a clipboard, talking to some girl. The girl in question looked sad, and even bothered by the man talking to her. Yet despite that, he felt he had caress her arm. And that's when I saw a sort of light coming out of his arm. The girl looked up, but before she could say anything at all, the man had already started walking away. I wasn't sure of what happened, so I ran up to that guy.

"What did you just do?" I asked him.

He looked surprised: "Nothing. I er... I'm with the departure comity. I'm asked to wish people on Lexington Air a happy flying."

"And that light-thing you just did?" I asked him, "What was that?"

This time, he looked surprised: "You saw that?"

"Yes! I saw that!" I replied, somewhat angered.

"Well then, I suppose there's no point bullshitting you." he said.

My eyes widened, but he wasn't done. He held up his clipboard and asked: "Is your name on this list?"

I took a quick look. The clipboard held a list of names. I didn't see my name on it, so of course I told him "no". Although, I'll admit, even if it was on the list, I'd still have said no, because he just made himself look very suspicious.

"You're in luck then." he said, "Unlike her, though."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"That girl I just reaped." he said, "Her name's M. Sordino."

I raised my arms: "So?"

"Maybe you should talk to her." he explained, "I'd hate it if she left us, still completely miserable."

I blinked a few times. What was this guy talking about? I was about to ask him, but then he said: "I'm sorry, but I still have forty-three people to reap. So long."

He ran away before I could bring out another word. Everything he said and did was a complete mystery. What did he mean by reaping people? He couldn't possibly mean what I thought he meant. That is, if he were a Grim Reaper, he wouldn't be so benevolent to ask me to try and comfort that girl. Since she came to my mind, I looked at her l again. Judging from the fact that she was looking at me, she probably witnessed this conversation. She probably didn't hear anything, at this distance and with all the noise, but she could tell the conversation didn't go very smoothly. She smiled, understandingly. I just shrugged as a reply. Then she looked away. The man said her name was M. Sordino. I figured, since I had nothing to do, and she did notice me around, I might as well talk to her.

So I sat down next to her. She immediately spoke.

"That guy gave you trouble too?" she asked.

"Sort of." I replied.

The girl left it with that. Clearly, she wasn't in the mood to talk. For reasons beyond my own comprehension, I didn't like seeing her like that.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"What's it to you?" she snapped back.

I snickered: "If anyone's got a reason to be pissed, it's me."

"Oh? And why is that?" she questioned, though she didn't sound like she wanted to know.

I told her how I spent the last few months in this country to clear a few things with the government. I couldn't tell her the whole story, but she did get the gist of it. At least, that's what I gathered from her silence.

"And I thought I had it rough." she replied, "I traveled thousands of miles, hoping I could get my work displayed at..."

She mentioned the name of the museum, but I had never heard of it before, so it didn't mean much to me. But if getting it displayed there was enough for her to travel so many miles, it must be something big. And therefor, I understand how she could be feel completely let down when they didn't accept her.

"I wish I knew what to say." I replied.

"Don't." she said, though she sounded a little softer this time, "I heard the curators say they're sorry too many times already."

"And it sounded like an insult each time?" I asked her, "Like they're really laughing in your face?"

This actually brought a smile to her face: "Yeah! How do you know?"

"It's what I got from every job I ever got interviewed." I replied, "I mean they won't accept you if you don't have the experience, but elsewhere they'd say you're over-qualified, which basically means I have too much experience. Make up your mind people!"

She laughed. Personally, I didn't think I was being funny, but I guess she needed something, anything to make her laugh.

Once her laughter died down, I asked her: "That guy from before, said your name was... M. Sor... something.

"Sordino." she said, "But please call me Melinda."

I told her my name. And with this, we talked for quite some time. And even when the PA said it was time for us to board our plane, it didn't stop us from talking more.


	14. Chapter 14

On the plane, our seats weren't next to each other. However, as it turned out, the seat next to Melinda was empty, so once we were allowed to move freely on the plane, I took this as an opportunity to sit with her. It truly was amazing how much we had in common. We were born in the same year, we're both aspiring to be artists (the difference being that she paints and I write), and neither of us want to talk about our school years. It's funny that I had to go through... all the things I went through, just so in the end I could meet this wonderful girl. So yes, we talked, we laughed, we seemed to understand each other better than most people understood us. If this isn't a good reason to start falling for this girl, I don't know what is. But... there was a catch there. During our conversation she expressed a sort of anger with that clipboard-man. She didn't see the light that I saw, but just the fact that he touched her at all was enough to set her on edge. It made me afraid of touching her in any way, or to even say that I like her. But as that thought was being processed, I remembered what happened before I met the clipboard-man. I saw something crawl into one of planes, and forgot to tell anyone about it. I started telling myself to hope that "it", whatever it was, didn't crawl on this plane. But just as I started hoping, the fasten-seat-belt light flashed. That couldn't be a good sign, I thought to myself, so instead of fastening it, I got out of my seat to check the plane. But just as I got up, I felt something grab hold of my hand.

"What are you doing?" it was Melinda, stopping me, "We're supposed to st..."

As much as I'd love to cherish that moment where she was holding my hand, there were other important things to consider. So I replied: "There's something I have to..."

I couldn't finish my sentence, as the plane started shaking, oxygen-masks dropped down, people started screaming, and I felt myself being forced to the back of the plane. We were crashing.

This realization was the last thing I remembered before I woke up. And this sensation of waking up was different than ever before. You know how when you wake up from a dream, you first think whatever you dreamed of was real? But then, after a few seconds, reality catches up with you, and you realize it was a dream after all? The same happened to me, except I felt wet, as well as water dropping on me like rain. I could smell the grass that I was lying on, as well as something burning. I could feel my right hand was holding something, which felt like somebody else's hand. In short, I woke up from a dream, realizing it was a dream, only to than find out it was real after all. Because of this disorientation, it took me a while to collect myself, open my eyes and finally get up. What I saw was unbelievable. I saw a plane, or what was left of it. Pieces of it were scattered throughout the area, all on fire. I saw a man, who was on the highway, running towards the wreckage, authorities following suit. It was the very plane where I saw the little critter crawl into. The very plane that I was in. As well as Melinda. Once she crossed my mind, I reminded I was holding someone's hand. I turned to look, and found the seats that we were sitting on, with Melinda lying underneath them, her arm sticking out from under it. I'm not entirely sure of what happened exactly, but I guessed that the plane was breaking apart as it crashed, and in so doing tossed our seats out here. I wasn't wearing a seat-belt, but Melinda was, and since she was holding me, she pulled me with her. I immediately grabbed the seats and lifted them up, hoping to find her still alive. Her seat was sitting right, so I called her name. She didn't respond. I checked her pulse, but in so doing, I felt something in her neck. It felt like there was a bone sticking out. The weight of those seats must have broken her neck on the fall, I realized. With all the other dead bodies I had seen up until that moment, I had begun feeling stoic about seeing a body. But now that it's someone I actually loved, I didn't know how I should feel about it.

"No..." I heard someone whisper, just as I was about to say it myself.

I turned to look at who was whispering.

"Melinda?" I couldn't believe it. I had her dead body with me, and yet at the same time I saw her standing before me. Am I seeing her ghost?

"No!" she shouted, "You can't do this to me!"

She collapsed and started crying her eyes out. I walked away from her body, crouched down next to her, and tried to comfort her. I inhaled to start talking, but nothing came to me. What do you say to someone who just died? I died once before, but got resuscitated. And the circumstances in which they happened were so specific, I'd be surprised if the same would happen to her.

"Look, Melinda, I..." was the best I could muster.

"You know, I was ready to die, just a few hours ago!" she said, "I didn't get accepted, like so many other times before. If I died just then, I wouldn't have cared. But then... then there was you!"

I gulped: "Me?"

"Our talk, it's the longest conversation with a guy I've had since... ever!" she explained, "You listened, you understood, you made me laugh... you're the first decent guy I've ever met in my life! And now I'm... and now I can't..."

She couldn't finish her sentence. Not that she needed to, as I fully understood what she meant. I wasn't sure how I should feel about this either. I mean, I'm used to disappointment myself. I liked a girl, I start talking to her, befriending her, and before I know it, she got herself a boyfriend, and it's not me. Here a girl seemed genuinely interested in me, and she died. I realize she had become a ghost, but I knew that that wouldn't last very long (if at all long). This was the one time where I thought a hug would be appropriate, but as a ghost, she probably wouldn't feel it. I had already raised my arm to wrap around her before I came to that realization. She turned her head to look at my arm. Embarrassed, I lowered my arm again.

"I... I really don't know what to say or do now." I said.

She chuckled: "At lea... at least I... I managed to save you."

She began acting more pleased all the sudden, but I couldn't be sure why.

"Save me?" I questioned, "How?"

Melinda got up, slowly, as she continued: "I hate being dead, knowing that it means I can't be with you now. But... I'm glad that you'll live."

In so far it was physically possible, she caressed my hand and kissed me on the cheek. A shiver went through me, though I'm not sure if that was because she was a ghost, or because I'm not used to a girl giving me any such affection. She turned around and walked into... I wasn't sure what. I've heard stories of people walking into a light, but here the light looked like an art museum. A museum that evaporated as soon as Melinda had walked inside it. This left alone in the rain, next to a plane wreckage, feeling grieve over the loss of a girl, happy to know how she felt about me, and confused about what just happened before me.


	15. Chapter 15

It not only took me a while before I realized that I was spacing out in the rain, it took me a little longer to realize that I just survived a plane crash, with only a few scratches. I only just spent a few months trying to convince authorities that I was nobody to be concerned about, and then I survive a crash. I didn't know how, but it would be harder (or rather impossible) to convince them of that. On the other hand, I could always just disappear, and let everyone think I died on the crash. However, authorities knew I was supposed to be on this plane, and will find the fact that they can't find my body very suspicious. So coming forward wasn't an option, nor was faking my death. Anyone who has ever found themselves in an impossible situation does not know what they're talking about. Not knowing what else to do or where else to go, I just walked away, following the highway.

I had very little money in pockets, and if I used an ATM, people would know about it. So I had no other option, but to sneak inside a motel room, hoping nobody would find me there. But once I got inside, the phone rang. I was tired from the walking, and the long day just before I boarded the plane, yet the ringing of the phone is what shook me awake again. Somebody knew I was there. I left the room and ran as fast as I could. But back on the streets, I still wasn't safe. A car stopped by. Its driver said he had someone on the phone who wanted to talk to me. Who could possibly have the power to know where and when I'd be?

"Will you take me already?" a voice came from the phone.

"Huh?" the driver was surprised, "I don't remember putting it on speaker."

I recognized the voice, so I took the phone away: "Hana?"

"Finally!" she said, after she turned off the speaker (I don't know how she does that either), "I've trying to get to you for hours."

I didn't realize I had been running away from the crash-site for that long: "I guess you've already realized my phone had been taken away."

"I'd love to get into that discussion with you." Hana said, sarcastically, "But that'll have to wait until you got off this rock."

"This rock?" I asked, "What do you mean?"

"I've been checking some satellite data." she explained, "And it doesn't look good."

"Why? Is there a comet coming?" I asked.

"No." Hana replied, "It's a solar flare."

This I didn't understand: "Don't solar flares happen all the time?"

"Not this one." Hana said, "This one's large enough to burn the whole atmosphere."

I froze for a moment. I heard the words, but I couldn't believe what they meant. I had to ask, just to be sure: "What are you saying?"

"Exactly what you're thinking." she answered, "The world will end."

As a response, I stammered. What could you say when you just heard the world will end? Only a few months ago I helped save the world from a god. Now there was another disaster on its way, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

"You can't take a shuttle that would take you to the moon." Hana continued, "But I do know some people who live in New York who can help you."

"New York?" I asked.

"Just go back to that motel you broke into earlier." she told me, "I'll take care of the rest."

She hung up, upon which I spaced out again. I needed to hear the car-driver shout to me to give him back his phone before I woke from my trance.

As Hana instructed me, I returned to the motel. I tried to get some sleep, but it didn't work. Despite of how tired I was, I just wouldn't fall asleep. How would you react if someone told you the world would end? When a reliable source told you, I mean. Strangely, though, once I was lying down, I came to a few realizations. Like why did she tell me so little about it? When would it happen? And why hasn't anyone else found out about it before her? And why didn't she tell anyone else? Why just me? For that matter, why is she taking care of me the way she has been doing for some time now?


	16. Chapter 16

October 16, 2009:

The moment I felt a gun being held against my face, I completely lost all sense of reality. I heard a man's voice shouting something at me, then felt a punch in my stomach and the gun pressed harder against my face, and he shouted something again.

"Alright! Give me a minute." I told him.

I could barely make out his reply: "I don't have a minute!"

"But I need it!" I snapped back.

Clearly, he didn't expect any sort of response to that, as he didn't say or do anything for a moment. But that moment was enough for me to regain all sense of reality. I remembered where I was, how I got there and why I got there. I also remembered Hana told me she knew someone in New York who can help me. So at some point I must have fallen asleep, and was probably about to wake up, just as somebody decided to hold a gun at me. This someone was a middle-aged man who wore huge glasses and a southern accent.

"I'm not gonna ask you again." the man spoke, "What can you do?"

His choice of words implied he asked me before already. But since I was still groggy at the time, and confused, I couldn't understand him that time. But even though I do now, I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Do?" I asked.

"Don't play dumb with me!" he shouted, "I know all about you people. Teleportation, telekinesis, regeneration,..."

"Er..." I stammered, "I'm not with the 4400, if that's what you..."

"The 4400?" the man seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. Which was good, because that brought us on the same level.

His cell-phone rang. Without taking his eyes off me, or putting down his gun, he answered it: "Yeah?"

He waited for her to talk, then replied: "I found him, but he's not cooperating... Well I asked him what he can do... What?... But then why?..."

There was a surprised look on his face, but it was enough for him to lower his gun, and give the phone to me: "She wants to talk to you."

She? That could be only one person. I took the phone, but she already spoke before I could say anything: "I see you already met Bennett."

"If you mean the mean guy with glasses, yes." I answered.

"That's him." Hana replied.

"What's his deal anyway?" I asked.

"He used to hunt down people like me." she answered.

"Like you? What does that mean?" I wondered.

"If you get out of this alive, I'll tell you one day." she replied. But right now, you have three days left until the world ends."

Normally, hearing this would have me say something along the lines of "so you have enough time", but hearing about the end of the world caused my heart to skip a beat, so I didn't say anything.

"He may not seem very friendly... who am I kidding, he's rarely friendly, but he knows some people you can trust." Hana continued.

Hearing her voice caused my mind to return to current matters, and suddenly I asked: "Why are you doing all this?"

"In a way, you're looking at the answer." Hana answered, followed by the tone the phone usually makes when somebody hangs up.

"So you're running from the law, but you're not... one of THEM?" the man, Bennett, asked.

I answered: "I already told you...

"I'm not talking about the 4400!" Bennett answered, "I'm talking about people with abilities!"

This didn't clear things up. The most recent people I knew of that have abilities were the 4400. I have heard about so-called mutants that swarmed the world during the sixties, but if he meant those, he'd probably have mentioned the word "mutant" at least once already.

"If you're not one of them, then why would Miss Gitelman ask me to help you?" Bennett asked.

Though I knew he meant Hana, it was the first time I heard anyone say her last name out loud. And as is typical for Americans, he completely butchered the name.

"What can you do, anyway?" I questioned.

Bennett had that look on his face, I almost expected him to growl. But he held back, and answered: "I know a loft in New York City, where you can stay for a while."

Knowing what was to come, and soon, I asked: "How long is a while?"

"Just come along!" he shouted, clearly not interested in long conversations.


	17. Chapter 17

As we were driving to New York, Bennett never said a word, though the look on his face showed that he didn't like what he was doing. The ride was long and silent, so I decided to try and start up a conversation.

"What did you mean earlier?" I asked, "When you mentioned people with abilities?"

"You seriously don't know, do you." Bennett didn't sound like he was asking, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

The old excuse to cover up a lie, I thought to myself, so I said: "And if I told you I was there when giant monsters were attacking the West Coast, you wouldn't believe me either."

He looked at me in disbelief. Maybe it was a bad example, seeing as most of the world was aware of those events.

"Or that I was aboard that plane that crashed just the other day." I added.

"Were you?" this time, he sounded interested.

"If you want to know how I survived, I don't know." I replied, "One moment I was on the plane, the next I..."

It was harder for me to relive that moment than I thought it would be. As it reminded me of the one moment I didn't want to remember. I tried to collect myself and continued: "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I've seen weirder things happen, so I might believe whatever you're telling me anyway."

Bennett shrugged: "We're not sure how it started, or why."

"It?"

"In the past few decades, people with extraordinary abilities showed up." he explained, "Some can fly, others can draw the future, my daughter..."

He stopped. Apparently his own daughter was one of these people. I suppose this was a subject that I shouldn't pursue any further, but he continued anyway.

"Knowing how dangerous these people can be, I was hired to hunt them down, and if necessary kill them."

"What did you do when you found them?" I asked, "If not kill them?"

"If they're dangerous, we lock them up." he answered, "If they're useful, we recruited them."

"And if they're neither dangerous or useful?" I wondered.

He didn't answer, but instead he said: "What I can't understand is why Miss Gitelman is so concerned over you."

I was about to say that that made two of us, but he spoke before I could: "She's been asking me to round up everyone with abilities. You're the first I meet that doesn't have any."

I wouldn't say that, I thought to myself, as I do have the ability to see things that others can't. But I wasn't sure if I belonged in that same category. His description of these people sounded a lot like the mutants from the sixties, but he never once called them that, as if they were an entirely different variety altogether.

"But then, she keeps finding new ways to surprise me." Bennett said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Last time I saw Miss Gitelman, I told her to blow up a satellite." he answered, "Last I heard, she died during re-entry."

So I heard, I thought to myself. When Hana first contacted me, she showed me a file about her, which said she indeed died. I never quite figured out how she survived. Unless...

"Did she have an ability?" I asked.

"Yeah." Bennett answered, "She could send and receive messages to every phone and computer in the world, just by thinking it. She didn't need a laptop or anything, she just was in and of herself a walking computer."

This suddenly made sense. So if she indeed died while trying to destroy a satellite, she could have downloaded herself into another satellite, and thereby still be alive. If so, that would explain how she knew where I was the whole time, since some satellites are equipped with cameras (of sorts). So if you knew where to look, you could find virtually everybody on the planet. It would also explain how she knew about that flare that was about to hit our planet. Normal humans couldn't keep their eyes on everything their satellites pick up twenty-four/seven, but Hana could, so of course she'd know things before others do.

"So tell me." Bennett suddenly started, "What exactly happened to you on that plane?"

I wish I knew, but to him that probably wouldn't suffice for an answer. So instead I said: "Maybe there was somebody on that plane that helped me survive."

"But why you and not somebody else?" Bennett asked me.

That was a fair question. If Melinda had indeed saved me as she claimed, the "why" was obvious, but the "how", not so much. Could it be that she had an ability of her own? Or was I just trying to make sense of a painful situation? I didn't want to discuss this any further, but how would I make that clear to him?

"What about your daughter?" I asked, remembering that seemed like a painful subject to him earlier.

"I'm not talking about my daughter." Bennett replied.

"Then I'm not talking about the crash." I replied.

He stopped the car abruptly. He was about to say something before his phone rang. He answered: "What?... Because I want to make something clear... No, but... What?... If you think I... Fine!"

He hung up: "Somebody up there likes you."

That phrase usually refers to a certain god who lives "up there". I happen to know for a fact that the god he was likely referring to doesn't like me at all. On the other hand, if we're to take his words literally, there happens to be someone "up there" who does like me, and was probably the one calling him a second ago. In which case, Bennett was both right and wrong about his statement.


	18. Chapter 18

New York City, October 19, 2009:

The place he had sent me to was... weird, to say the least. Tables were knocked over, windows were broken, empty (or near-empty) paint-buckets and brushes littered the place, every object was collecting dust, and if I didn't know any better I'd say the floor was painted to look like it was exploding. Somebody had a strange sense of humor, I thought to myself the first time I arrived here. It took Bennett several hours to get me here (not made any better with the traffic in this huge city), and once he dropped me off here, he told me which shops I should go to and which areas to avoid, and he'll be back as soon as he can. It's been several days and an accident in the subways since then. What could he possibly be doing that got too busy to remember I'm waiting for him to return? Or had he forgotten about me? Seeing as he was dealing with people who are (apparently) more dangerous than me, I suppose it wasn't unthinkable that he might have. Of course he took me some place completely cut off, or at least from any means of communication, so Hana couldn't contact me, so I didn't have anyone to talk to. Several days I spent sitting, pacing, playing with the buckets and brushes (that is, I tossed one brush after another, and hopefully they'd land in one of the buckets), and I didn't hear a thing from either Bennett or Hana again. Then the moment came when I knew I couldn't wait any longer. When the streets were rampant (more than usual), the sky turned orange, and the heat became unbearable.

Not caring about being found or killed, I left the place. I ran into the streets as fast as I could, tried to dodge as many other runners and/or hooligans as I did. I heard many phones ring, but either somebody answered them before me, or somebody smashed them before anyone could answer them. The only other phones I could find that weren't occupied, were the ones that were already smashed before I got there. Every now and then, somebody's cell-phone rang, but nobody cared to answer. I used to think that this is what would happen when December 2012 arrived. The day that was predicted that the world would end. That nothing would happen except the people of the planet wrecking things themselves. So the end of the world would only come about because people believe it will, not because it actually would. But looking at the streets, and bearing in mind that the end came long before the predicted date, I'm not sure what to believe anymore.

"Hey, you!" somebody shouted at me.

I turned to look. Somebody from inside the nearest building was calling me.

"Are you _" she said my name.

I nodded, then she said: "I got a call for you."

Finally, I thought to myself, so I came to the house, just when a car stopped in front of it. I was let in, and so was the guy who drove the car that stopped. The guy got inside, I saw him joining with that girl who called at me, as well as an elder couple.

"It's not the end." the older man said to the guy.

"I know." was the reply, upon which he joined in some kind of group hug.

I assumed this was an estranged family, who got back together because the world is ending.

I picked up the phone: "Yes?"

"I was afraid this would happen." Hana said.

"Afraid what would happen?" I asked.

"Bennett looked you up." she explained, "When he found out about you, he decided you were no priority anymore."

My heart stopped at that moment. I hadn't done anything, but I was accused of things anyway. Of course, anyone who has a daughter to protect would think that to be reason enough to distrust me, and put me low on his list of priorities. No, he wouldn't put me on that list at all.

As a last ditch effort, I asked: "And you couldn't convince him or anything?"

"How could I?" Hana asked, "I'm one of THEM, and I'm supposed to be dead, and not showing myself to him.

If the giant flare that was about to kill me, her words certainly were.

"I am sorry." were Hana's words, and though I knew she meant it, they did little for consolation.

I dropped the horn, at the same time that the heat was getting unbearable, the scent of smoke started to clog up my nostrils. My instinct told me to run, but I already knew there was no point to it. I sank down, felt the fire burning my skin for one brief fraction of a second, and then there was nothing but darkness...


	19. Chapter 19

"Hey! Wake up! You're missing it!" I heard someone yell.

This not only seemed to wake me up, but it also made me aware of my surroundings. I was lying on something soft and comfy. Like a bed. My bed. Did I just dream what happened? Slowly, I opened my eyes. Before me stood a girl, of roughly the same age as me.

"Come on, sleepyhead." the girl said, "Everyone's already here."

I saw her, but I couldn't believe it: "Jess?"

She smiled: "What, were you expecting someone else?"

I got up slowly: "Well, I wasn't expe..."

I didn't finish my sentence, as I noticed I was still wearing my clothes. The same clothes I was wearing when the world... when it incinerated? But if it incinerated, why is my apartment still here? For that matter, why was Jess here? Did I dream everything from the day Jess was killed to the day the world ended? This didn't make sense.

"What the matter?" Jess asked, though jokingly, "Cat got your tongue?"

"If I knew the answer, I'll let you know." was all I said.

I knew that Jess wouldn't understand, but for some reason she didn't show it: "Come on, everyone's already here."

"Who's everybody?" I asked.

She giggled, but said nothing. Instead, she left my room, thinking I'd follow her. And she thought right. Nothing about this situation made any sense. So I got out of my bed and left my apartment.

What I saw then made even less sense. The hallway I usually end up in when I exit my apartment was visibly old and barely maintained. Here, the hallway was new, improved, and seemed to belong to a five-star hotel rather than some apartment building. I saw Jess entering an elevator, which was something else which my actual apartment-building didn't have. It was like my apartment had somehow moved into another building. Once I was in the elevator, she pressed the button for the lobby.

I wanted to ask her: "Er... Jess, wha..."

She shushed me: "Come on, can't you at least pretend you want to be there?"

She didn't say this as though she was angry. In fact, she seemed happier than I had ever seen her.

After a while, the elevator doors opened, and I was at what looked like a reception.

"Hey!" they all called out. Or at least some variation of that word, depending on the individual speaker.

I was then greeted and shook hands with everyone of them individually. Among them were several people I had met during my travel around the world. There was that werewolf I met in Germany (he had to remind me his name was Daninsky). There were that Nerd and that Critic, who were suddenly the best of friends, like there never was a fight between them. Potter was there, as well as those two wizards I encountered in Arkham. There was that guy from T.E.C., Ana Free, someone who claimed to be Jason (though without his hockey mask I couldn't be sure), the Zyurangers, Daizyujin (in human size), my co-workers from SGS, and... someone I didn't expect to see at all. Melinda was there as well. She didn't just come to shake hands though, she came to embrace and kiss me. It was in that moment that I forgot the situation and decided to join in on the fun.

And what fun we had. Not only was there food and drinks, but a so-called open mic, where Ana Free was singing songs, Jess was performing stand-up (yes, that surprised me too), and the Nerd and the Critic (along with two others) performed what they called a hoedown. When that hoedown was sung, I turned to look at Melinda, whose hand I was holding the whole time. But as I looked at her, I couldn't help but notice our hands clasped together, and remember the first time that happened: when we escaped that crashing plane. I immediately let go, as too many thoughts started to cross my mind.

"What's wrong?" she asked me.

I couldn't lie to her if I wanted to, so I said: "I... I need to room to breath."

I left the lobby as fast as I could. Strangely, the first door I opened lead me back to my apartment room.

"Doesn't make sense, does it?" I was startled when I heard that voice.

I turned to look, and in the middle of my room stood an old man, completely bald, wearing a business suit, arms crossed.

"Who are you?" he was the first man I met that time that I didn't know.

"You may not have seen me before, but you have heard of me." he answered, "My name is Charles Xavier."

That name sounded familiar indeed: "Xavier... from the Xavier foundation? I once applied for a scholarship from you... Wait, aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Aren't you?" Xavier asked in return.

For a moment I thought he had a good point, but I recovered quickly: "No, you died decades before..."

I couldn't finish my sentence, so Xavier did it for me: "Before that flare killed you all?"

That was exactly what I wanted to say, but I wasn't entirely sure about the truth of that anymore. So I merely nodded.

"Do you remember what happened in April this year?" Xavier asked.

"Of course I do." I answered, "Cthulhu awoke and attacked the planet."

"And how did you stop him?" Xavier questioned.

"By throwing him into the su..." it was then that it hit me, "Wait, are you saying that... that Cthulhu is responsible for that flare?"

Xavier nodded: "You have merely destroyed his body, but you couldn't destroy his mind. That's why he was still strong enough to develop a flare that not could only incinerate you, but also attract something towards the Earth."

"And would that something be?" I asked.

"Where do you think you are?" Xavier asked in return, to which I shook my head as I didn't know, so he explained: "There was a ribbon in space, that was about to pass our solar system. With the flare, he could attract the flare closer to Earth, and it would take everyone off the planet, saving them from being burned.

"Wait!" I didn't understand, "So Cthulhu saved us? Why?"

"Is it not obvious?" Xavier questioned, "He caused a disaster which everyone will remember, and now they wake up somewhere which they'll perceive as paradise."

"So they'll than Cthulhu for saving them..." I realized, "Not knowing he brought it onto them in the first place?"

"Yes." Xavier replied, "Of course he'll have to make sure they don't remember he attacked the planet once before, but if he can do this much, there is no limit to what he can do."

"We'd better warn others!" I said.

"We can't." Xavier told me, "By the time we've warned them, Cthulhu will already have convinced too many people."

"Is there nothing else we can do?" I wondered.

"There is one thing." Xavier said, "If you go back some time before Cthulhu awakens, you might be able to prevent him from being awakened."

"Go back?" he couldn't be serious I thought, "How?"


	20. Chapter 20

Barely had I asked the question, or I found myself back in my apartment. I thought this was another trick of the mind, until I left my room, and found it to be as old and barely maintained as I remembered it to be. I looked at my wristwatch, and saw the date.

April 11, 2009:

I was sent back one week before Cthulhu would awaken. But that couldn't be the case, I thought. I searched my pockets, and found my phone. That same phone that Daizyujin had taken away from me just months ago, or that he will take away from me a week from now. Even if I was sure whether I did travel through time, this whole situation confused me. Which made me wonder what I could possibly do. After all, I'm no politician, or in any way someone of higher authority. How should I be able to stop the end of the world? Why did this Xavier person decide I should be the one to save the world? His own foundation wouldn't grant me the scholarship I applied for, which meant I wasn't "special" enough for them, so why would Xavier himself think that I am? That's when another thought struck my mind. Is this even the past? After all, this... dimension I was in, as Xavier described it, would be perceived as paradise to many people. As such, it may be responding to my wish to prevent the flare from happening. In which case, how could I even be sure this was real?

SGS Headquarters:

Here I found my first clue that this was real. Even though I wasn't supposed to be at work that day, I went anyway. There, I immediately went to see Napoleon. I didn't care whether he didn't allowed anyone in his quarters or not, what I had to say couldn't be said over the phone (you never know who else might be listening). Though I made it to his door, he had guards stopping me. The guards in question were so strong, I wondered why Napoleon didn't let them do all the treasure-hunting instead of us. There was a screen on the door, which lit up.

"Guards. Let him go." Napoleon ordered them, and they obeyed without question.

"Now... You know this is your day off..." Napoleon started.

"And I'm not supposed to be here. I know." I interrupted, "But this is important."

I explained to him how a week from then we would find R'lyeh off the coast of New Zealand, and how Cthulhu would awaken and attack the world. Napoleon merely nodded after I was done talking.

"You believe me?" I was surprised.

"Is this the first time you had a premonition of the future?" Napoleon asked, with a tone that hinted his disbelief.

"You don't believe me." I said.

"I didn't say that." Napoleon replied.

"But you didn't actually listen." I snapped back, "I never said I had a premonition."

"No, you said you're from the future." Napoleon agreed, "But if you're from the future, where's the present you?"

I saw where he was going. If I was a time-traveler, I'd be existing along-side a younger version of myself. But this time, me and my future self (or is that me and my past self?) are one and the same.

"Look, if I fully understood how this works I could answer you." I explained.

"So you expect me to believe something that you cannot prove, accept something you cannot explain, and all to what end?"

That's when I knew for certain that he didn't listen: "To save the world!"

"In my experience, you shouldn't look to the future for peace, you have to look for it today." he answered.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, as that sounded completely off-topic.

"Even if I believed you, what do you expect me to do about it?" Napoleon questioned.

"Isn't our job to find and save-guard artifacts that can harm others?" I reasoned.

"It is." Napoleon replied.

"Well I'm telling you where and when we can find one such artifact." I said.

"But I can only take your word for it." Napoleon replied, "And if it turns out you're wrong, we'd have wasted too many resources. I don't want to gamble over that."

If I were in that other dimension still, Napoleon wouldn't have hesitated at all to help. So this was all real. On the one hand I was relieved, because it meant I had a chance to save the world after all. On the other, it also meant that no matter what I say, try and/or do, I might not be able to do anything.

"What about the Faiz-gear?" I asked.

"What about it?" Napoleon wondered.

"If you won't help me, fine." I answered, "But I will still need some kind of weapon to defend myself. If I turn out to be wrong, the gear wouldn't be used, and you wouldn't have wasted resources."

"True." Napoleon agreed, "But we've done all the tests we could think of. Nobody can use the suit. It wouldn't be much help to you even if you were right."

"Yes it will!" I pressed on.

"And why would you be the only one who can use it?" Napoleon asked.

There was another dilemma. On the one hand I shouldn't be afraid to admit having an unnatural body, seeing as the future of the planet was at stake, but on the other hand if I did and I manage to save the world, then this would change my relationship with my co-workers forever, to a point that would make my life miserable, so there wouldn't be a point to saving the world. Surely, I'd have saved the world, but should I really sacrifice my (relatively) normal life for that? The first time I used it, that was only because I had no other choice, but now I do.

"If you won't help me, then I'll find someone who will." I said.


	21. Chapter 21

I left Napoleon's door and looked for a quiet place for me to make a phone call. I thought about going to the main room, but there was a chance that my co-workers were there as well. It was hard enough to make Napoleon believe me, it'll be worse if I have to explain my situation in front of them. So I hid myself in a broom-closet, where I dialed Commander Krugger's number. In his case, I needn't worry that somebody might be listening, as Hana would probably guard the line on her end, and S.P.D. would secure Krugger's end.

"Krugger here." he almost immediately answered.

"Commander Krugger, I need your help." I said.

I heard him sigh: "So does the rest of the planet, every minute of every hour. Is this urgent?"

"Very!" I replied.

I told him the whole story, as fast, as detailed, and (given that he sounded busy) as brief as possible. From the rise of Cthulhu, through the solar-flare, up to the moment I traveled back.

"Interesting." was all the reply I got.

"I should think so!" I exclaimed.

"What you described sounds like something from a story I heard." he explained, "Some kind of ribbon that travels through space, but is in fact a portal to another dimension, where the laws of time do no apply."

"You know about this?" this surprised me.

"Yes." Krugger answered, "The first people who encountered it called it the Nexus."

"Great!" I nearly shouted, "So you believe me."

"Well, there is no possible way you could know about the Nexus, unless you somehow had access to our computer-files." Krugger explained, "So yes, I do believe you lived through it."

"Can you help then?" I asked.

"I wish I could." Krugger replied, "But if I drop all the work here just to help you, I would risk letting other beings destroy your planet instead. I need everyone here."

I was appalled by this: "But... you're a commander! Can't you ask for reinforcements?"

"I could." Krugger explained, "But I'll need more than your say-so that a threat is imminent."

"I thought you believed me?" I couldn't understand it.

"I do." Krugger replied, sadly, "But my superiors wouldn't. The best I can do is send someone over to you."

"Just the one?"

"I am sorry." he said, and I believed him.

We hung up after that. I suppose I should be glad to get just one person to help me, but counting me, we'd be only two people against an enemy that I knew nothing about. Suddenly, my phone rang again. I looked at the screen, which read "unknown number", so this could mean only one person was calling.

"Never have I been so happy to hear from you, Hana." I answered.

"I heard your conversation with the Commander." Hana said, "Can I help?"

It is circumstance such as these that I'd wish she would show me a number so I could call her, rather than waiting for her to call me.

"What can you?" I asked.

"I know how to contact several mercenaries." Hana explained, "Unfortunately, only two of them are available right now."

"Well that's a start." I replied.

"One of them asks for high prices." Hana explained, "But I think he'll accept if you tell him the world will end if he doesn't help."

"You think?" that didn't sound reassuring.

"He's not exactly known for being sane." Hana elaborated, "So I'm sure he'll believe your story."

I wasn't convinced: "If he's not right in the head, that makes him unpredictable."

"Maybe." Hana said, "But you don't know what you're facing, therefor neither will he. That alone he should find challenging."

"And if he asks for cash anyway?" I wondered.

"Don't worry, I'm working on a contingency plan." was her answer.

I still didn't feel right about that, but I had too few options to refuse that one: "And the other?"

"She doesn't care much about money, so that solves that problem." Hana explained, "Plus she is looking for someone, and I believe I've found her. If she helps you, you'll tell her where she can find this woman she's looking for."

"That's good to hear." I answered, "But... that still leaves us with four people. Unless you know a way to join in yourself?"

"Believe me, I wish I could." she answered.

Under normal circumstances I'd ask why she couldn't, but I already knew why. And even if I didn't, I've been asking others to believe my unbelievable story, so I should show the same courtesy to Hana.

"So what does that leave us with?" I asked.

"There are a few others I can ask, but..." Hana hesitated, "It would mean we have to blackmail a few people into cooperating."

I sighed. I didn't like the idea either, but since all life on the planet was at stake, I had to take all available options.

"Do it." I replied, though I felt the strain in my voice for saying so.

"Alright." Hana said, "We'll be in touch."

She disconnected the call.


	22. Chapter 22

Not knowing what else to do, I returned home. Much to my surprise, I found someone waiting at my door. Someone I recognized.

"Jasmine?" I said.

"Nice to see you again." she said.

Hearing her say that sounded ironic to me. I shrugged it off: "Did Krugger send you?"

"Yes." Jasmine answered, "He didn't tell me much, though."

I sighed: "Do I have to tell the whole story again..."

"No, you don't." Jasmine replied, upon which she took off her glove, placed her hand on my shoulder, then closed her eyes.

It took me a moment to remember that she was a psychic, able to read minds by merely touching them. This way, she didn't need to hear my story, as she could just pick it up from my thoughts. Or so I thought, but after a few seconds, she took her hand off me, scared.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You... I'm not picking up any thoughts!" she replied.

I rolled my eyes. I was beginning to hate that thing that was done to me, which allowed for protection from telepaths.

"So..." I said, "Looks like I just have to tell you anyway."

As fast and as detailed as possible, I told her the whole story. Once I was done, I asked: "So now you know."

"I..." Jasmine needed some time to collect herself, "I know you have a vivid imagination."

"What!" she didn't believe me either?

"Even in our line of work, visions of the future are unusual." Jasmine explained, "You may be convinced it's all true, but for all we know it could be just a fantasy of yours. So I'm sorry, this still isn't enough to convince my superiors."

I buried my face in my hands: "It's never easy with you people."

"I'm sorry." she said.

My phone rang, so I answered: "Yes?"

"I see an S.P.D. plane has landed near your house." Hana spoke, "I take it that agent is with you now."

Considering she can just activate my phone's microphone and hear my every conversation even when I'm not calling, it surprised me that she didn't know that. I guessed even she can't do everything at once.

"She is." I replied.

"Good." Hana said, "Then she could take you to the meeting place."

"Meeting place?" I questioned.

"To meet who I hired." Hana explained.

"Oh!" I replied, "And where is that?"

"I'm sending you the exact coordinates now." she replied, upon which she broke the connection, which was followed by my phone receiving a message, which I opened.

"Can you take me here?" I asked Jasmine, showing her the coordinates I received.

"Er... yes?" Jasmine didn't trust this, "Where is this?"

"Dunno." I replied, "All I know is that other people are waiting for me there. People who will do what S.P.D. won't."

"And you trust them?" Jasmine asked.

"I haven't even met them yet." I replied.

This seemed to change the expression on her face: "Then I can't let you go there."

"You really want to stop me from trying to safe the world?" I questioned, "Fine, then go back to your station. However, I will find a way there. You can't stop me there."

A grin appeared on Jasmine's face: "All you need is to wear red and shout every word, and you're a lot like a colleague of mine."

I didn't know what she meant by that, so I wasn't sure if this was a compliment or an insult. Either way, I didn't care: "Whatever, just..."

A beep from my phone interrupted me. I had received another message. However, this one had an attachment, which were quite a few megabytes. The screen on my phone was too small to make out what was in the attached files, so I had no other choice.

"If you'll excuse me, I have something else to look into." I told her.

I was about to open the door to my apartment, but Jasmine stopped me.

"If you're so determined..." she said, "... you may need police protection."

"I thought your department couldn't afford to send more cops." I reminded her.

"If we're lucky, you'll need only one." she replied.

That one being her, I assumed: "Luck has been the one thing I'm missing these past couple of hours."

Once I was inside my apartment, I downloaded the files from my phone onto my computer. The files were about the people I was about to meet. Although I knew I had a week before the rise of Cthulhu, I still felt like every second I wasted was one too many. So I quickly glanced over all the files. One of them looked like a little girl. She didn't seem like much of a threat, until I saw a picture that dated from the 1800s. So she was born in the 19th century, and still looks like a little girl today? In itself that didn't say much about her. I looked at other files. One of them was about a man in his thirties, who didn't look very dangerous either. If anything, he looked like an every day guy. Though, looking at his picture more closely, I remembered seeing him before. He was one of those cops I met back in Miami. Interesting, I thought to myself. Another file was about some guy who... at first glance looked like just another youngster. Nothing special at all. Then why was there a picture of a ghost-mask on the same page? The last file was about a guy with a red suit and a red mask. One that covered his head entirely. No picture of his real face, almost like he wanted to keep his identity a secret. Though since his name was written next to his picture, what was the point? There was a lot to read, and I didn't want to waste any time. So I decided to print the files and read them on my way to Hana's coordinates. Once I remembered those coordinates, I decided to use the internet to find out where those coordinates were precisely. It turned out to be somewhere in New York. And after a more thorough examination, I realized she was bringing me to that loft where I stayed underground before. What was with that place that made it so special for both Hana and Bennett? Whatever it was, I knew where we had to go, and could get myself acquainted with the people I'll be working with for the next week (give or take).


	23. Chapter 23

The Old Loft, New York, April 14th, 2009:

All four of the ones that were summoned either lived outside New York, or they were out of town for business (whatever that meant for them). So naturally it took a while before they all arrived. As they arrived one by one, I asked Jasmine if she could collect them for me (being a cop and all, I was sure she knew a more diplomatic way to handle some of these people). Once all five of them (Jasmine and the others) were in one room together, I decided to join them.

"Oh hey!" one of them already started, "So you're that voice that keeps telling the story."

I froze, not knowing how to react.

"You really need to work on your narration, pal." he continued, "I almost didn't show after reading your first two chapters."

I opened my mouth to talk, but he wasn't finished: "Oh wait, did I say two chapters? I mean two words! Gosh! And YOU make fun of that Gillespie chick when you're wearing that hood and shades!"

Hood and shades? What was he talking about? I knew from his file that this guy sometimes thinks he's in a comic book, other times in a computer game, or even that he's his own action figure, and this time (from what I can gather) a novel. But his sanity (or lack thereof) didn't seem to end there.

"And will you stop talking in brackets!" he brought up, "It's annoying."

"That's enough, Wilson!" I shouted at him.

That seemed to calm him down. Obviously he didn't like being called by his real name.

"Hey now, no need to do that!" Wilson replied, "Let's show some respect!"

"Good." I said, "You follow your own advice and maybe we can do business."

"Oh yeah." Wilson said, "I was told you had an offer I can't refuse."

Clearly a mercenary, I thought to myself. I knew that the phrase "an offer you can't refuse" was often used in mafia circles, so a mercenary like him must've heard it several times already.

"So..." I said as I sat down, "You're Wade Wilson, also known as Deadpool."

"Hey look! I'm famous!" Wilson, or Deadpool, exclaimed, "Even in..."

This time, the little girl jumped up, pulled her sword out, pushed Deadpool off his chair and held her sword against his neck. Jasmine jumped up, raising her gun, while one of the other two guys got up (apparently in reflex).

"Go ahead." Deadpool said, "It won't kill me."

While I couldn't see her face from where I was sitting, I was sure hearing that surprised her.

"From what your file told me, all we need to do is cut off your head, and make sure it stays separated from your body."

"That I can do." the little girl said.

"Alright, all right, I'll behave." Deadpool said.

The girl let him go and went back to her seat, leaving room for Deadpool to say: "... for now."

Everyone else sat down, so I could continue: "I see your short temper is reason enough to get this over with, Saya."

The little girl, Saya, looked at me. She had that look in her eyes from which anyone could recognize as one of someone planning to kill you.

"I'm here for one reason only." she said, "I don't want that guy to slow us down."

"Right." I said, "You hunted someone down in the late sixties, thought you killed her, but now we know she's still alive."

"Wait." that same guy who got up from his seat when Saya attacked, started, "You're just gonna let her kill this..."

He hesitated. I assumed the full extent of what I had said just came to him. Saya doesn't look much older than fifteen, and yet I just said she hunted someone down during the sixties. But what really struck me as odd was his concern.

"Why should you care?" I asked him.

He seemed aghast that I'd ask: "It's... it's just not right."

"Now that you're Jake Green, boy scout, small-town mayor's son and US soldier, I'm sure you feel that way." I said.

"No. That's just..." he stopped again, "What do you mean?"

Knowing that there was one cop present in the room, I didn't want to give too much away, so I decided to give him a hint of what I meant: "It must've been a very good plastic surgeon. To make that scar on your forehead disappear."

I could see the fear on his face, but he stood his ground: "Scar? What scar?"

"From being shot in the head." I said, "Very few people are lucky enough to survive that."

"Yeah, like me!" Deadpool said.

"What is he talking about, Jake-San?" Jasmine asked him.

"I dunno." he replied, though he was clearly sweating.

"Tell me..." I said, "... how does it feel to know that others have tried to finish the job you started? Wearing your suit? Using your methods? And yet none of them..."

"Okay, okay!" he finally gave in.

"So you finally admit." I smiled.

"Admit what?" Jasmine asked.

Knowing what it would mean to answer that, I moved on to the last person in the room. He was the only one who hadn't said a word, and the only one who didn't seem to be too concerned about what was going on around him. I'd almost say there was a sort of glee about what transpired so far. That was until I made it clear that I knew something about Jake Green which he wanted to keep a secret. While that last guy was trying to hide it, he had stiffened at the end of our discussion.

"Nice to see you again, by the way." I said to him.

This changed the expression on his face: "Again?"

"Maybe you don't remember me." I said, "Last summer, in Miami? Two cops stopped a car, which had a dead body in the trunk. You were one of those forensic people, investigating."

"You were a passenger on that bus?" he seemed to remember.

"Oh joy!" Deadpool applauded, "Is this where you write a flashback chapter now?"

Just to shut him up, I humored him: "Maybe. But the flashback wouldn't be mine."

While everyone else looked confused, Deadpool became anxious to know more: "Cool! Whose is it?"

"That would be Mr. Morgan's." I replied, in reference to that last guy.

Still confused, said guy, Morgan, asked: "What are you talking about?"

"Let me put it this way." I explained, "A lot of people in Miami have gone missing. Some of whom had been in touch with local law enforcements recently."

"What's that got to do with me?" Morgan wondered.

"Probably nothing." I said, "However, for all of our sakes, we should hope it has everything to do with you."

"So you've got nothing?" there was a clear hint of disappointment in his voice, "I came all the way here, just to hear you say you've got nothing on me?"

"Not exactly." I said.

"I've wasted my time here." Morgan was about ready to get up and leave.

"Maybe you'd rather I brought up your first child." I said.

A clear look of anger crept on his face. He started towards me, wildly, so Green had to stop him from coming closer. This didn't stop him from shouting though: "If you harm one hair on Lily Anne's head..."

He had probably seen the look of fright on my face as he was about to attack me, but the moment he said the name of his daughter, I soon found my leg to stand on again: "Lily Anne? Really? I thought that was your second child."

This calmed him down. Relatively speaking. He stopped trying to attack me, but now seemed to wait for me to give him a reason to attack: "What... what are you..."

"My resources tell me that... there's a period of nine months missing from your sister's records." I explained, "Somebody went through great lengths to hide something. Wonder what it is."

"Are you saying...?" Jasmine seemed to be the first to understand, "... he... and his sister... did they... really?"

"Great! You're making a soap operah out of this." Deadpool remarked.

"Now, about that... other thing, Morgan, you've clearly covered up your tracks well." I said, "For lack of anything solid, there's little we can do. However, should this ever leak out..."

"I see where you're going." Saya suddenly decided to talk, "You're blackmailing us into helping you. You're starting to sound like my old bosses."

Whatever comfort I had just gained from this, started to fade away, as Saya's words reminded me that I was really nervous about addressing all of them.

"I don't know who your bosses are." Jasmine told her, "But nothing they ever told you to do could be more important than this."

"That's what they said too." Saya remarked.

"Yeah, why haven't you told us why we're here anyway?" Deadpool asked.

As asked (though I would have done it anyway even if they didn't ask) I explained the situation to them. About how something will happen the very next Saturday, which will eventually lead to the end of the world.

Once I was done explaining all that, Deadpool said: "Wow, you just needed three lines to tell a twenty-chapter story."

I ignored him: "Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant."

"Sure." Green remarked, "Since you're not giving us much of a choice now, are you?!"

"You're willing to blackmail us... over a dream about the future?"

"Like I said, it's irrelevant." I snapped back, "Right now, we best visit my friend's place, see if we can trap our... target, and be done with it."

"Sounds fair to me." Deadpool said.

Everyone, including myself, made a face. Given that most of what Deadpool had said so far made little to no sense, it made one wonder what he knew about what was and wasn't fair.


	24. Chapter 24

I told the others to wait at the loft for me to contact them. It was one thing to just barge into Jess's house and tell her what was about to happen. It was quite another to do that while there were five others following me, each of whom looking a little crazier than the other. When I finally made it at her doorstep, I rang her bell, and she answered the door.

"Hi!" she exclaimed, "Long time no see."

"You have no idea." I replied.

She noticed the tone with which I said it: "What's wrong?"

"Do you still have... the book?" I asked.

"Of course." she replied, "I never leave it out of my sight."

"Yeah..." I replied, "You might have to now."

This changed the expression on her face: "What are you up to?"

"Can I come in to explain the whole situation?" I said, though somewhat reluctantly, seeing as I had told this story many times before already.

Being the friend that she was, she trusted me enough to let me in to explain.

After a relatively brief explanation, she had just one question: "...Okay, suppose I believe you, here's what I don't get. If there is someone out there who wants to take the Necronomicon, how did he know I've got it?"

Now that she mentioned it, I realized I hadn't stopped to think about that. I've always assumed that... these people (since we found multiple bodies on R'lyeh) just somehow found out she had it, but I never stopped to think about how they knew. On the one hand, it was possible that they had their ways to detect it when someone is performing the rituals that are in that book. On the other hand... just when that thought occurred to me, I had the answers to all my questions.

"I think... it may be my fault." I replied.

"Your fault?" Jess questioned.

"I... kept a journal, where I wrote down all my exploits as I traveled the world." I explained to her, "Including our encounter in Amityville, our trip to Arkham, where we met those wizards..."

"And you think they read your journal?" Jess asked.

I could actually feel myself sinking through the floor in shame: "Well... I did publish it on the internet, for all to see, so..."

"You WHAT!" this enraged her.

This must be why Xavier thought I should be the one to change history. Because I was the one who made it in the first place.

"How could you do this?!" Jess nearly shouted.

"I suppose 'sorry' won't cut it." I said.

This rendered Jess speechless. It was the best answer anyone could give me.

"But what probably will is... well, let's just say you could help save the world." I told her.

"If I got a penny every time someone told me that..." Jess replied.

"I know, I know." I replied, "I'd predict the near future if I could, but unfortunately even today happened a long time ago to me."

Jess snorted: "That's a new one."

"All I do know is that you will be killed some time soon." I continued, "And your body won't be found until Saturday. At least, can't you stay at a friend's house? Until the whole thing has blown ov..."

Jess shushed me. Judging from her composure, I deduced she heard something. And I heard it too. Voices, originating from the corridor, right in front of her door. While I couldn't quite make out what they were saying, one of them sounded like a female's that kept screeching, another sounded male, and somehow large and muscular, almost like even his own voice was doing some body-building.

"What are they doing at my door?" Jess wondered.

"These wouldn't be..." I realized.

I wasn't sure if Jess finally believed me, but even if she didn't, she was paranoid enough to look for the Necronomicon. I followed her, and in so doing, I had my back turned to the door when I suddenly heard a blast coming from that direction. Frozen in fear, I didn't turn to look. What I did do, was take my phone out of my pocket and dialed Jasmine's number.

"Well... so there's someone home after all!" the screeching female voice sounded.

"This is what I hate about muggles. They fear magic so much, they won't even use it to protect themselves." another voice, British by the sounds of it, said.

He used the word "muggle", which meant to me that he was (somehow) related to Potter.

"Muggle?" Jess said, trying to seem more courageous than I felt, "Pretty juvenile. How old are you?"

"Laugh while you can." the heavier voice from before spoke, "Professing themselves to be smart, they became idiots."

I was wondering what he was saying, just when Jess replied: "You're using bible-quotes on me now?"

Bible-quotes? This must be that crusader we found on R'lyeh.

"Well, somebody has to do the talking." this one sounded deeper, almost like that villain from the "Galaxy Wars" movies, "When your friend seems so quiet."

I realize he must have meant me. I looked at my phone's screen. Jasmine had picked up the phone, so she was hearing what was going on here. I lowered the phone and turned around. Seeing them, I didn't know what to think. Their dead bodies seemed weird when I first saw them. But seeing them alive, they seemed even weirder than when they were dead. That guy who said "muggle" was indeed related to Potter, as he wore an outfit that was similar to Potter's, and carried around a stick, as though it were his wand. One thing that was particularly noticeable about him was that his hair was bright blond, almost white, which was in stark contrast with his otherwise darker outfit. That guy who addressed me had a naked upper body, whose back was alight with many light-bulbs, while electricity was sparkling between them as well as his fingers. The crusader was... funny, in his own right. He was very tall and very broad, but wore a colorful outfit, almost as if he was supposed to be a superhero of some kind. But by far the weirdest of this band was the woman, who had long white hair, which was apparently so long, she had to wrap it around her neck, like she would with a scarf. She also wore a headdress that was clearly worn out. As was the rest of her outfit. The only thing that seemed new was this long rod she held. It was of about the same length as her, with a circle of some sort on top of it. I could show courage among the band that was supposed to help me (though I didn't have any), so I could show some in front of these people too. Or so I tried to convince myself.

"Let me guess. You're here for the Necronomicon." I said.

"So you must be the twerp who wrote about it." the electric guy said.

So this whole event was my fault after all. This really didn't help my situation any.

"Are you?" the white-haired guy questioned, "I've got some friends who'd love to hear this. Harry Potter, supposedly the world's greatest wizard, outsmarted by mere muggles."

I saw an expression on Jess's face which implied she didn't understand him. If I didn't already knew what the word "muggle" meant, I would have that look on my face too.

"Well..." I started, "If he is the greatest one, then why aren't your knees wobbly?"

He laughed: "Why should they be?"

"Well, if Potter is greater than you, and we outsmarted him..."

"Enough!" the woman shouted, "Just give us what we came here for!"

Suddenly, something materialized behind these four.

"Ta-dah!" Deadpool said, "Just in the nick of time!"

The electrical guy seemed to recognize him: "You..."

"Why! If it isn't Johnny Ohm!" Deadpool replied, "Haven't seen you since I dumped you in that water-tower."

"Where's everyone else?" I asked Deadpool.

"They're on the way." he answered, "Jasmine's just parking the jet."

"There are more coming?" the woman sounded almost frightened at the prospect.

"Don't worry, my mistress." the crusader said, "Whoever this Jasmine is, I will not suffer a witch to live."

Considering the woman he just called "mistress" looked like a witch to me, I was surprised he "suffered" her to live. Barely had that thought crossed my mind, or something had jumped the crusader and nailed him to the floor. This was followed shortly by two men grabbing the white-haired guy and pushing him against the wall. After this, Jasmine, who had transformed into Dekayellow, had her gun pointed at Johnny Ohm.

"A Power Ranger?" the witch clearly got infuriated at the sight of her, as she started to spout what sounded like gibberish to me.

With one flick of his wand, the white-haired guy made himself disappear.

"Hey! No fair!" Deadpool complained, "Only I should be allowed to do that!"

The witch growled: "Malfoy, you coward!"

She stomped her staff into the floor, which somehow caused her and the other two to disappear into thin air as well.

"Looks like you were right after all." Dekayellow said.

"I would have said you hired these people to convince me." Jess said, "But I don't think even you could get Bibleman to work with you."

"Bibleman?" I scoffed. After all, what kind of person would pick the title of a book and add "man" to it, and start calling themselves that? Apparently this crusader did.

"It's not as funny as it sounds." Jess explained, "He's known for brainwashing kids. He convinces them to stop studying, stop getting along despite their differences..."

"In other words..." I understood, "... he's being an exact role-model for the type of person you shouldn't be."

"Yeah." Deadpool said, "If the Daredevil were still alive, I don't think even he would like him very much."

I could only assume he meant one specific daredevil, but I didn't go into that.

"I must say, I didn't expect to meet that Repulsa woman." Green suddenly said.

"Repulsa?" there was another name I wasn't familiar with, "You talking about that witch?"

"Didn't the Power Rangers deal with her over ten years ago?" Morgan questioned.

Before I could ask who he was talking about, Green answered: "In my line of work, you always meet people again, even when presumed dead."

"Wait!" Deadpool sounded like he was panicking, "So it's possible some of the people I killed are still alive?"

I tried to ignore him: "In any case, we now know who we're dealing with. But what's worse is that they know we know, which makes them more dangerous than they already were."

"I'd better take your friend into protective custody." Jasmine suggested.

I looked at Jess, who nodded: "Do I really have a choice?"

"While you're at it, it may be best to give the Necronomicon to SGS." I told her, "It's not safe in your hands anymore."

This seemed to pain her: "Yeah..."

I wish there were some way in which I could comfort her, but time was already running short: "Meanwhile, we better regroup. We've won this time, because they didn't expect you to come. That won't work a second time."

"Unless we can find them before they can move away." Saya suggested.

My phone rang, so I answered: "Lemme guess, you have a lead?"

"How well you know me." Hana replied, "I checked all the satellites that have detected the energy that witch used. I then scanned the whole world for that same energy, and I found them."

"Great!" I answered, "So where are they?"

"From what I can tell, they're inside an old ruin." Hana answered, "In a desert, just outside of Angel Grove."

This sounded painful, as I remembered that one time I was in Angel Grove myself. I didn't exactly receive a warm welcome, as a group of multicolored hooligans attacked me, for some reason believing me to be a monster.

"We'll look into it." I told her, then hung up myself.


	25. Chapter 25

We had all gathered at Jasmine's vessel, where we discussed our further course of action. I had relaid to her where we had to go, upon which she explained what she'd do.

"All right." she said, "I'll drop you off in that desert."

"You're not coming with us?" I asked.

"I can't." she explained, "Not only do I have to take your friend in custody, I have to tell my superiors exactly what happened here, so we can send back-up."

"Who will arrive late as always." Deadpool remarked.

"I don't need back-up." Saya said.

"Where is Jake?" Morgan wondered.

"Dunno." Deadpool replied, "Said he had to pick up supplies, and that he'll be back."

Just great, I thought to myself. We'll be missing one ally, while another is wasting his time doing... who knows what he was doing. But as I was thinking about this, I noticed this look on Saya's face. She seemed to be shifting her eyes, as if looking for something.

"Something wrong?" I asked her.

"We were watched." she explained.

"Really?" Deadpool sounded surprised, "How can we be watched? Did they adapt this into a movie?"

Like myself, Saya ignored him: "There were people watching when we burst into the apartment."

"You mean I've been stalked?" Jess asked.

There was a smirk on her face: "Are you that interesting?"

"Are we still being watched?" Morgan seemed particularly panicked about that.

"I don't see them anymore." Saya answered.

This whole situation was starting to get weirder. From her file, I already knew that Saya was born out of two vampires, which meant that she had much better senses than all of us combined. So if she noticed we were watched, that didn't surprise me at all. What surprised me was the fact that she seemed to know more about our watchers than we did.

"What exactly did you mean when you asked 'are you that interesting'?" I asked her.

"There was this smell about them." Saya said, "Like they were much older than they looked."

"You're being stalked by grannies!" Deadpool said.

"Oh, shut it!" Jess yelled at him.

"Hey guys." Green suddenly returned, "What did I miss?"

"What's in the bag?" Jasmine asked him, referring to what he was holding in his hand.

"Just supplies." he explained, "Stuff I think we can use where we are going."

"What kind of stuff?" Jasmine asked him, professionally curious.

"There's no time for this." I said, "We've got somewhere to go."

"Yeah, what he said." Green agreed, though there was a hint of nervousness in his voice.

"Great! On our way to the guillotine." Deadpool cheered.

I would have made a remark, but while we're not actually going to a guillotine, we were on our way to do something we might die in. So in a way, I agreed with him.

On our way to that desert, my mind was trying to summarize my situation. So I was on my way to some desert, fighting one electrical guy, one wizard, one witch, one crusader, who were planning on resurrecting an old giant, while being accompanied by one dhampire, one forensics expert that may or may not secretly be a serial killer, one guy with a fake identity who's spent time in the army upon having some experience in killing people himself, and one mercenary who keeps thinking he's in some kind of work of fiction. I've been in weird situations before but this was the most surreal one. But to top it all off, we were apparently being watched by older people. According to Saya, they were older than they looked. If they were vampires, she would have said so. In other words, this situation may be more complicated than I expected. I wasn't entirely sure why, but that guy at the airport, who did that thing with the light on Melinda, he came to mind. I hadn't thought about it until then, but he did say he was "reaping souls". Could he somehow be connected to all this? If so, how? Did he have a stake at killing us all? None of this added up. What were we missing?


	26. Chapter 26

Jasmine dropped us off at the ruins in that desert. From what I could see, these weren't ruins because they used to be a building, which just collapsed over time. Rather, it looked like it exploded. And quite recently (relatively speaking). From what little there was left, it was still clear that its style was... alien. It didn't resemble anything that the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, or (since this was North-America after all) the native tribes would have built. Upon closer inspection, I even noticed there were quite a few electric wires and nails lying about, making this look like a modern day junkyard. Almost as if it were really a modern building, rather than an ancient ruin.

"You done narrating?" Deadpool asked me.

The look on my face was enough to show him I had no idea what he was talking about.

"We got ourselves some enemies to kill." he added.

"If we can find them first." Morgan said.

"They're here." Saya said, "I can smell them."

"Can you also smell where they went?" I asked.

As a response, she ran towards where the smell lead her... and then stopped.

"You found them?" I asked.

"I don't get it." she said, "They should be here."

I thought about this: "Well, it's supposed to be an old building. Maybe you stumbled upon a secret hatch."

Saya seemed to consider the idea, so she looked around her. After a few seconds, she said: "If I did, I see no way to open it."

After that, I heard Morgan looking through some of the junk that was scattered around.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"If these used to be computers..." Morgan explained, "... maybe they still have something on their hard drives."

"So?" I asked.

"So maybe they can tell us where and if there is a secret entrance." Morgan answered.

"Why bother?" Deadpool said, as he raised his guns, pointed them at the ground beneath Saya and started shooting. As a reflex, Saya jumped aside, and immediately ducked down. It took me longer than her to see, but once I saw a bullet ricocheting against the rock next to me, I ducked down too. It took a while, but eventually the shooting subsided. Only to be replaced by the sound of two men fighting. I got up to look. Green was fighting Deadpool. Clearly, he was the one who stopped him. But then I noticed Green was also wearing a black robe. When did he have time to change into that, I wondered. But when I thought about it, I hadn't seen Green for some time since we entered the ruins. Did he hide to change into that? While I was wondering about that, Saya ran to punch Deadpool in the stomach, which knocked him out for a few seconds.

"Fool." Saya... whispered, strangely, "Couldn't you see those bullets bounced off?"

"I dunno." Deadpool said, "I was too busy pulling the triggers."

"What are you wearing?" Morgan asked Green.

"It's what you needed me here for, right?" he answered, "To be the man I used to be."

"I thought it was supposed to be a secret that you're that man." Deadpool remarked.

"Yes, but we all got our secrets to keep." Green said.

"I see what you mean." I decided to join in, "You'll keep our secrets, as long as we keep yours."

"That's right." he replied.

"Well you better be ready." Morgan suggested, "Coz I'm sure that they've heard the gunfire."

A mechanical whir confirmed that. That very spot where Saya stood earlier started opening up. Every one of us readied themselves for battle. Morgan put on a silk mask and his black gloves. Saya gave her own hand a small cut with her sword (probably testing how sharp it was). Green put something on his head as well, which looked like a black mask with a white face, a ghost's face. So Ghostface was indeed a fitting name for him. Deadpool took the empty clips out of his guns and replaced them with loaded ones. While I... I had no weapon or mask on me (I had my magical phone, but I didn't know enough spells to help me), so I put on my gloves, which were specially designed for combat. But as I put them on, I noticed we had an audience. Twelve people in total had surrounded the ruins, as if they were expecting to see something happen. What bothered me most about these people was how... normal they looked. They didn't look like people who had any special reason to be there, or had some kind of stake at what was about to transpire. They literally looked like people who just happened to be in the neighborhood. And yet, in the corner of my eye, I could see Saya shifting her eyes as she noticed that audience as well. While she tried to remain a stoic composure, I could tell she was uncomfortable with them. Were these those very old people she mentioned?

At long last, our real opponents emerged from underneath that floor. I could tell that the Witch looked surprised at the sight of us. She and her henchmen readied themselves for battle, but then she looked up.

"Ah!" she cackled, "The Gathering has arrived as well!"

The Gathering? Did she mean the audience? Were they involved with this?


	27. Chapter 27

"Cool!" Deadpool cried, "More people to beat up."

"You're not supposed to be here." one of the... Gathering said.

"And you are?" I asked.

"When me and my husband tried to take over the world, they were there." the Witch said, "When we came to find thé book, they were there."

"So they will be here, when God himself judges the world." Bibleman said.

Upon the mention of the word "god", Saya leaped us to attack Bibleman, but the one called Malfoy raised his wand and pointed it at Saya. He mumbled a few words, which shot a green light at her. She fell down when she was hit.

"Anyone else who wants a try?" Malfoy said.

"Hey! That's a neat trick!" Deadpool shouted in joy, "Can you teach me? Can you? Can you?"

"Can it!" Ghostface snapped at him.

As if on demand, Saya got up, though somewhat troublesome: "This was... odd. What did you just do?"

The face I saw upon Malfoy's face (I gathered this green beam didn't have the effect on her that it should have had), was priceless.

"This may be worse than we thought." Morgan said.

I wasn't sure I followed: "How do you mean?"

"I've seen some of these people before." he explained, "On several crime scenes."

"So you have." Bibleman said, "Only a fool would deny what he sees with his own eyes."

He then stated some name, followed by numbers, and added: "The fool hath said in his heart there is no god."

"And the idiot said he will not let a witch live, while he's following a witch himself." Ghostface remarked.

"Before we drift off, can somebody explain what is going on here?!" I asked.

"I thought you already knew." Deadpool said, "It's happened to you before, right?"

"Happened before?" that same guy from the Gathering was perplexed.

"You've broken god's laws?" Bibleman said.

Again, this caused a rage with Saya, who jumped at him. Malfoy tried to stop her, but she was too quick for him this time. With this, the fight now really started. Believing himself to be powerful enough, Deadpool attacked Malfoy, while Morgan and Ghostface took care of Johnny Ohm. This left me to deal with the Witch. But as I got ready, the Gathering ran down to us, joining in on the fight. The others noticed. I saw Deadpool saying something to Morgan and Ghostface, who both stopped their battle with Johnny Ohm, and started fighting the Gathering. Deadpool would deal with both Malfoy and Ohm himself. Somewhere during this fight, Saya decided she should fight both the Witch and Bibleman herself. I myself could only try to use some of my fighting techniques against the Gathering. While I had only one year of training, I thought it should suffice against these people. But I soon found out I was wrong. I could give these people one punch, and yet it seemed as though they didn't feel it. It didn't take long until these people had me cornered. From that corner, I could see how the Witch had used her staff to wipe the floor with Saya, who then had Bibleman hold a sword above her, about to kill her. Malfoy had used that same green light on Deadpool. While it didn't... do whatever it was supposed to do (I guessed), it was still enough to stun him, so Ohm could hold him in a strangle-hold. As for Morgan and Ghostface, they were forced to put down their weapons or their friends will die.

"Why did you do this?" one of the Gathering asked.

"Do what?" I asked in return.

"Your friend said this happened before." someone else elaborated, "So you must have come from the time to come."

This I didn't understand, "Because I want to stop the world from ending."

"And we want to see it end." somebody else replied.

I guess that the look that appeared on my face said more than a thousand words ever could. It was then that I recognized these people for who they were. That Witch called them the Gathering, which in my language translated into... well, something else, which was why I didn't recognize them at first. As the story goes, these people witnessed an event so horrible many years ago, but did nothing to prevent it. For that, they were cursed to remain on this planet forever, to witness every disaster that ever took place. Urban myths has it that they were there when Kennedy was assassinated, that they were there when the Titanic sank, when a giant gorilla ran loose in New York, when war machines attacked London,... and they were here to witness how that Witch revives Cthulhu, and to eventually see the solar flare. And much like the first time, they do nothing to prevent it.

"I see our reputation precedes us." that first guy, whom I guessed was either the leader or the spokesperson (let's stick with Spokesperson), suddenly decided to talk again, "So now that you know who we are, you understand why we have to stop you."

It was then that my phone beeped. If it were Hana, she'd just call me, but I received a message instead. Whether that message would help me or not, I couldn't know, but at the time, it seemed like the best way to get out of this sticky situation.

"All right." I said, "I... I'll just quietly read my message while... while I let you destroy the world."

"Don't try and be humorous now." the Spokesperson said.

Whether they believed me or not, just the fact that I opened my phone to read my message was enough for them to think I was suddenly too preoccupied to deal with them. So they turned away.


	28. Chapter 28

The message I received came from Jasmine. It read: "Help is on the way. In the meantime, since you're a civilian, I believe you need this."

This was followed by a number, which I dialed in my phone. Upon doing so, rather than someone picking up on the other side, something came out of my phone. Whatever it was, it engulfed itself around my body, until it formed a sort of suit. That's when I realize what it really was. She explained to me once before (or chronologically speaking she will explain to me later) that this was the same sort of suit that agents from S.P.D. use. My guess is that much like regular cops giving bulletproof vests to civilians, she decided to give me S.P.D.'s version of a bulletproof vest. Once I was in that suit, I suddenly felt I had all the power I needed to fend off these people. So I ran towards them, punched my way through the Gathering, and helped my allies who were in their tight spot. With this, they could pick up their weapons again, I thought. But as soon as that thought crossed my mind, the Witch had raised her staff, conjured up a spell that knocked us all down. In my case, the suit took most of the blast, causing a huge tear on its back, and me to instantly lose whatever strength I have left.

"You still don't get it, do you?" the Witch spoke, "I tried to conquer the world once before. Me and my husband. But we were stopped by mere infants."

Was that an insult, I wondered. Was she trying to say that we were failing where little children succeeded? Then again, she looked like an old woman, so in her eyes a man in his thirties may be a child, so I took no notice of it.

"It cost him his life..." she almost sounded sad as she continued, "... and now, the whole world will pay for this!"

"Say..." Ghostface tried to bring up, though with obvious difficulty, "... aren't you... supposed to be a... man of god? What... do you think... he'll say..."

"It has all been foretold." Bibleman replied, "That the dead will rise when the world ends. I am merely here to see that it happens."

"What about you?" Saya addressed Malfoy, "I've heard about you before. You were always a dog that obeys its master without question. Do you really want to go down that way!"

"Enough!" Malfoy shot another green light at her, and although I think he already knew it didn't have the desired effect, at least it did hurt her a little, and he wanted that satisfaction.

"Johnny." the Witch turned to him, "Roast them!"

"With pleasure..." he said, as he was charging up.

Several thoughts ran through my head. At first I thought the five of us weren't enough against these people, but then I realized this wasn't entirely true. Two of us were immortal, or at least close to it, while the other two were serial killers. What does that make me? An amateur martial artist, a guy with access to magic, but unable to use it, and a suit that merely protects, but doesn't help enough in combat. In fact it shouldn't even be me to wear it, but Morgan, or Ghostface. Or even both. But since both wanted to keep much of themselves to themselves, they couldn't give their phone numbers to Jasmine, who did have access to my number. So if it wasn't for me, she'd have been forced to ask them for their numbers, so they'd have the suits, not me. On the other hand, if it wasn't for me, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. If Johnny Ohm was to roast us, at least I can say I tried to correct my mistakes, and I just failed. I'd have no regrets...

Or do I?

Melinda flashed through my head. If I were to die here, it would mean that I failed the one chance I had in saving her. She died saving my life, the least I could do is return her the favor. She was after all the one girl I could truly talk to, whom could truly understand me, the one girl... that I love. I realized I couldn't leave it here. And suddenly, I found my motivation again. The Necronomicon may be safe, but who's to say that these clowns won't try and steal it again? Or find some other way of destroying the world? I could feel my hand forming a fist, and grab hold of some of the sand.

Johnny Ohm was about to shoot his electric charge until he caught something in his eyes. It was sand, which I threw in his face, temporarily blinding him. Both Bibleman and Malfoy raised their weapons to retaliate, but that was when a blinding light engulfed me. That light, not only seemed to give new energy to my allies, it also seemed to change something with me. Once the light had vanished, I stood erect. I was wearing my regular clothes, as that suit I wore had suddenly vanished. My gloves, while still retaining their normal colors, seemed to glitter, much like that protective suit did. My phone had... magically appeared in my hand, which i then opened, only to find that I had received another message. Given the light that the message gave off (not the screen, the actual written message), I assumed that Magiel (who gave me that phone in the first place) had something to do with it. The message read "555", which was a number I immediately recognized.

"What's going on!" the Witch demanded to know.

"Hey!" Deadpool cried, "What sort of Deus Ex Machina did you just pull out of your ass?"

Everyone not familiar with the Latin words he just used looked at him, so Deadpool responded: "What? Always wanted to say Deus Ex Machina."

I knew the answer to his question, but I didn't think the explanation would mean anything to him. Daizyujin told me before that I didn't have the necessary courage to wield magic, which was why he and Magiel decided to take it away from me. But in doing what I just did, they found me worthy of one magic spell. One, which from what I can gather, seemed to be a combination of a lot of things. Those gloves that come with my Jyuken practices, that metallic suit from S.P.D., the magic from my phone, which in turn was powered by one of Daizyujin's medallions, and judging from the number on my screen, it even had something of that Faiz-suit.

"Well..." I said, suddenly finding the courage I never had before, "... time for my nightmare to end, and yours to begin."


	29. Chapter 29

As with the Faiz-suit, I pressed the number "555" in my phone. Doing so caused a belt to appear around my waist. I suppose this was better than having to drag the belt around all day every day as I would have with the other belt. With this, I inserted the phone into my belt. It started to make a few noises, lights that my phone and belt were equipped with (I don't know why either) started flickering... but other than that, nothing happened.

"Oh! I'm so scared!" the Witch shouted.

"The ninth commandment..." Bibleman said, "... thou shalt not bear false witness."

"Nice going." Deadpool said, "You made a light show. Now we're laugh-stock.

"Enough already!" the Witch cried, "Get them!"

Bibleman raised his sword, Malfoy made his wand sparkle, and the Gathering encircled us. Saya swung her blade, Ghostface slashed his knife, Morgan raised his fists and Deadpool beat around with his one gun (guess he ran out of bullets) and showed off with his katana blade, but nothing they did could keep everyone at a distance. Malfoy mumbled a few words again, which I still can't remember, but even as he was saying them, I recognized them to be the incantation for that green light. That's when it hit me. What I used was a magic spell, so it wasn't enough to just insert my phone into the belt, but I should also say a magic word. I didn't remember if the message I received had, besides a number, a word attached to it. But if this were anything like the Faiz-suit, which I remembered clearly had an unusual word written next to the number "555", then maybe that was the word I needed.

"Henshin!" I shouted.

And surely, the belt started lighting up. As did I, apparently. Within seconds, something engulfed my entire body, eventually forming the suit I was expecting to see. This startled everyone.

"Another one?!" the Witch seemed frightened this time.

"Now that is more like it!" Deadpool said.

I would agree, except that I had no idea of what I looked like. But even so, I quickly remembered that we were fighting a battle. So I ran through the crowd that had us surrounded. The Gathering tried to stop me, but I just punched my way through (something I couldn't do before). Malfoy wanted to use his wand again, but I knocked it out of his hand. I would assume he tried to pick it up, but judging from the fact that I heard him shout things like "What do you think you're doing?" and "Give it back!", I guessed somebody picked it up before him, effectively disarming him. Bibleman said another name, which was about to be followed by numbers, when Morgan suddenly had wrapped a noose around Bibleman's neck, stopping him from saying another word. Johnny Ohm wanted to... shock us all again, but Deadpool knocked him out before he could do anything. This left me to face the Witch by myself.

"You're just like those other people!" she said, "You're all about showing off and being all goody-goody!"

She couldn't see the expression on my face, so I had to actually tell her: "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She pointed her staff at my chest, so I ducked down and let my head bud her in the stomach. This was enough to let her fall to the ground, but she still had the strength to beat me with her staff. Though my body still ached from the earlier battle, the suit helped compensate for all the pain, so I didn't even feel anything she was doing. As soon as she realized that, she started to mumble a few words, that were enough to light up her staff. Immediately I took the staff out of her hands, raised it's bottom end and stabbed it through her chest. A look of agony appeared on her face, shortly before it crumbled down, as if the body was supposed to be dead long ago. I was relieved, but only for a brief moment. Maybe I had just gotten cocky, what with being powered by this suit, but this somehow seemed too easy. I tried to turn away, but that didn't work. For some reason, my feet weren't responding to my command.

"Surprised?" I heard the Witch's voice, "You destroyed my body? I'm taking over yours."

That's when I remembered something Daizyujin told me: "You can't. My body's made to resist that sort of thing."

"Is it?" the Witch questioned, "Because it seems so easy now!"

My arms stretched out towards the staff, but not because I wanted to. It was the Witch who was doing this. If my mind was strong enough to withstand the mental powers of Cthulhu, and Cthulhu was strong enough to absorb the Witch's powers before, I should be strong enough to resist her doing anything to me. As she made my hands grab the staff, I made sure it stayed there. She wanted me to take the staff out of her old body, but I fought back, and did nothing of the sort.

"What are you doing?" she tried to force my hands again (literally).

I then noticed that the orb in her staff was still lit up. It was then that I realized what I had to do. I pulled the staff out, and while the Witch was congratulating me for following her orders, I smashed the orb on the ground, effectively destroying it. This not only caused her to scream inside my head, loud enough to give me a headache, but also... something I can't quite explain. Either a bright light or a huge explosion. But whatever it was, it was blinding at first, and it didn't take long before all turned black before my eyes.


	30. Chapter 30

I woke up at an infirmary. At my bed were three people, of which I only recognized two. The third person was some guy who wore a green coat.

"Jasmine? Commander Krugger?" I spoke, "What happened?"

"We were hoping you could tell us." Krugger replied, "Reinforcements arrived, only to find that the site has become a strange crime scene."

Surprised, I asked, "Strange how?"

"For starters, we've found many traces of blood, all from different people." Jasmine explained, "And yet we didn't find any bodies or wounded people in the near vicinity."

"According to that Saya girl..." Krugger explained, "The people to whom the blood belonged to just disappeared."

I assumed they were talking about the Gathering. Having read many stories about them, it didn't surprise me that they would disappear. They were cursed to witness all disasters, and the one disaster that was supposed to happen was prevented. I guessed that was enough to get somebody's attention.

"Other than that, our experts say there was an explosion, which should have killed everyone within a two meter radius." Jasmine continued, "You seemed to have been at the heart, and yet you're fine? Even with the suit I provided you, you should be worse off than this."

"Yeah, thanks for that suit, by the way." I replied.

"How did you survive that explosion?" Krugger asked.

"Would it mean anything to you if I said Magiel had something to do with it?" I asked.

"Magiel?" the guy in the green coat asked, "You know Magiel?"

"Isn't that the mother saint of all magic, Makito-san?" Krugger asked him.

"Yes." the guy, Makito, replied, "What did she do?"

Clearly, this Makito knew more about this than I did, so I said: "Maybe you could tell me, coz I'm not sure myself."

I tried to get up, but was immediately stopped by a pain in my side.

"Don't get up just yet." Jasmine stopped me, "You haven't fully recovered yet."

I laid down again, disappointed. Still, I had further questions: "What about everyone else?"

"The ones you called Morgan, Green and Deadpool had disappeared." Krugger answered, "As did that man who makes electricity from his own body. You have any idea where they may have gone to?"

I shrugged: "Deadpool is a mercenary. He could be anywhere."

"And the others?" Krugger asked.

Judging from Krugger's description, I guessed he was talking about Johnny Ohm. About him, I noticed that he and Deadpool had a history. As such, it would make sense that he took Ohm with him. So that's what I told Krugger. As for Morgan and Green (of whom they didn't know he dressed up as Ghostface), I had promised them both I won't tell the authorities anything about them, so I told him I didn't know.

"Are you sure?" Jasmine questioned, "You had a file on everyone."

"True." I admitted, "But I don't know them by hard. And even if I did, the files were very flimsy on some of the details."

"Where are they now?" Jasmine asked.

"Not sure." I replied, "I left them at the old loft. But knowing the one who gave them to me, I'm sure they'll have disappeared by now."

"Better have that checked anyway." Jasmine said, as she got up to to make a call.

"What about everyone else?" I asked.

"I got called in to take care of that Malfoy guy." Makito explained, "He got turned over to the British Aurors."

"Saya was taken into custody." Krugger continued, "But as soon as we arrived here, a call came for her. Soon after that call, she fought her way out of the building. Ten of our best men, and they couldn't stop her."

Cops equipped with alien technology, and they couldn't stop one dhampire. How embarrassing.

"And Bibleman?" I asked.

"I don't know what you've done to him." Krugger continued, "But we found him with stab wounds all over his body."

Looks like his armor failed him, I thought to myself.

"Well, to be honest, I didn't do anything to him." I explained.

Krugger thought about it: "Then that means that we now have four suspects on the loose."

"Er... Commander, if I may." I interjected, "They did help me save the world. Plus, it's not like he gave us much of a choice."

Krugger nodded: "Very well. But I still want to bring the other four in for questioning."

"By the way..." I suddenly remembered, "How's Jess? And what about the Necronomicon?"

"Your friend has been returned home." he answered, "And the book is secure. So even if you failed, those people would not have been able to use the book against us."

"No. But who knows what else they might have done." Makito said, "I mean, if they were so determined to raise Cthulhu, who knows what they would do if that failed?"

"You are right." Krugger agreed.

"So... when can I go home?" I asked.

"You need a few more days of rest." Krugger replied, "After that, we still got some questions for you."

"Er... when that happens, can Makito be there as well?" I asked, "I mean, there are some things I don't quite understand myself, but I think he may know the answers."

Krugger looked at Makito, who replied: "If it helps my allies of justice... sure, why not."

With that settled, the two of them could leave me to rest.


	31. Chapter 31

As part of reporting to Krugger, I dialed the number "555" on my phone and transformed. In so doing, I could see myself in the mirror for the first time. My suit looked heavily armored, with the colors black, gray and red. Thought the gray parts seemed to sparkle a little more than originally. And for some reason, my helmet bore a closer resemblance to a dinosaur than... whatever it was supposed to resemble before. According to Krugger (though he didn't understand why) that space-metal suit that was given to me, as well as my Jyuken-gloves, had somehow merged itself with the suit. I'm not entirely sure how that was supposed to work either. He recognized the gloves I wore, so he deduced that the "ki" that being a Jyuken user would unleash, somehow, mixed itself with the magic that was unleashed. My "ki", as I understand it, has something to do with the energy that's in my body. From that, I could only assume that it also reacted to my experience with the Faiz-suit, which was why my suit resembled it in so many ways. Makito also told me that whatever magic spell Magiel would have granted me would not have been this heavily armored, so I must have had outside help as well. Which would explain why it merged with the space-metal. This was a moment for me to say "Great, I have myself a battle-armor!" But I should only be so lucky. The metal it was made of was police property. If I want the suit, I have to pay them for it. And the price wasn't exactly cheap. Nor could I say that I earned a little something for saving the world, because this police force saves worlds 24/7. If they were given a little something for every one time they saved a world, they'd run out of their budgets. So until I payed for the space-metal, Magiel has blocked me from using the suit. Even with extra-terrestrials and magical creatures, life is still unfair.

Meanwhile, I wonder if I actually did the right thing with saving the world. During the months that followed, things that didn't happen before did happen. That giant monster with the long arms that fought Cthulhu before, had somehow found its way to Manhattan Island, where it caused a lot of chaos and destruction. The army could kill it, but not before all constructions on the island were destroyed. What's worse is that this monster (for whatever reason called Clover) was only a baby, according to experts. Which means that there are more out there. Next, a nuclear bomb exploded above the U.S., shutting down the electricity over many of the northern states. And if that wasn't enough, more bombs exploded, this time not shutting down electricity, but destroying most American major cities. But before that even happened, a group of internet critics combined their forces to take over the entertainment industry, of which I was asked to help stop it (which lead me to meet the Doctor, and live through several adventures with him). In other words, either we would be incinerated by the sun, or allow ourselves to live long enough to destroy ourselves.

But what bugged me the most was, with all the changes that have happened so far, what would that mean for me and Melinda? After all, the reason she and I had met was because I was in the States, explaining my actions there. This was something that Potter had arranged for me. This time, I didn't see Potter, so I didn't prove myself to him, so he didn't arrange anything that would bring me to the States. And even if he did, would Melinda still react the same way to me now like she did back then? And after everything that has already happened, who's to say that she didn't die in any of these disasters? I was starting to grow more concerned about her than about all the problems in the world. So even on a more personal level, I still wonder if I did the right thing when I saved the world.

**THE END**


End file.
